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Well, well, well...

The Linux Foundation published a new study today around the impact of generative AI on open-source software development. One key takeaway is that ~25% of new open-source software pull requests amount to AI slop.

The new Linux Foundation research study found that GenAI has the potential of cutting open-source coding time in half for increased productivity. They also found 59% of project maintainers found growing GenAI-based contributions. The 50% productivity boost was found to be across all types of open-source software development tasks. 71% of OSS maintainers agreed that GenAI reduces barriers to entry.

Very concerning though, their research found that 25% of incoming pull requests are estimated to be low-quality AI slop across open-source projects. Presumably that number will, sadly, continue to rise as more newcomers and users embrace AI/LLMs for working on patches on their behalf.

Those curious can find the Linux Foundation Research report in full via LinuxFoundation.org.

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[-] currycourier@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

This is just a survey though, people are notoriously bad at estimating their own speed.

[-] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 12 points 2 days ago

Several MIT studies have shown that while people feel more productive they are basically actually equal because of overhead. They have to spend more time managing the LLMs and designing prompts and reviewing output and it basically is a wash.

[-] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

Well this study finds:

For both contributors and maintainers, GenAI boosts productivity by up to 50% across all types of OSS development tasks.

[-] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Except this study is not peer reviewed from what I've seen and gathered data in very unscientific ways. There's no validation of answers and allowed users to just guess how much they feel they're being more productive. Like go read the questions, it's a person guessing at time saved. This study holds zero importance in the discussion in my mind because, as said, other MIT studies have shown people are actually incredibly bad at knowing how much time spent changed pre vs post LLM usage.

[-] auzy1@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

One interesting thing I have noticed is that there seems to be a few people pointing to "studies". Are you a developer?

[-] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, I'm a developer. And people point to studies because the scientific method and proper data gathering procedures have shown in the long run to be much more reliable and accurate than vague feelings.

[-] auzy1@lemmy.world -4 points 2 days ago

We could argue everything here is wrong then 😂

[-] mushroommunk@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

That is exactly what we're arguing. This "study" is wrong because it's built on faulty methodology and data and doesn't hold up under review.

this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2026
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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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