Open Source vs the Invisible Hand

kept by eddie jun 19

Open source software production defies standard economic theory by producing stable, valuable, and widely-used goods despite lacking price signals, contracts, or incentives that textbooks predict are necessary.

Package managers that package package managers
Andrew Nesbitt built a matrix showing which of 42 package managers can install each other, finding a 14-hop chain from AUR to an Elm compiler.
also on ecosyste.ms, npm, #tech-community, #open-source, #software-engineering, #developer-tools
Can Bundler be as fast as uv?
Aaron Patterson argues Bundler can match uv's speed through design changes like parallel installation and a global cache, not just a Rust rewrite.
also on Andrew Nesbitt, #open-source, #developer-tools
The 44-Minute CI Job (and the One Query Behind It) — Recall Blog
An unindexed CTE made a fuzzy-search query balloon CI benchmark time from ~9 minutes to 44 minutes; switching to a temp table cut it to ~1 second.
also on npm, SQLite, #software-engineering, #developer-tools
Before GitHub | Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
Armin Ronacher argues that as GitHub declines due to instability and product churn, open source must preserve its history by moving to decentralized, archivally-funded homes that avoid the pre-GitHub era's fragility.
also on npm, #tech-community, #open-source, #software-engineering, #developer-tools
Actually Queryable Executables
Farid Zakaria shows an executable as a SQLite database, letting a web server store code, routes, and state in one file, queryable via SQL.
also on SQLite, #open-source, #software-engineering, #developer-tools