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One of the arguments for open source software for end-users has always been the freedom to examine and modify how that software works.
The author opens by stating the classic rationale for open-source software aimed at end-users: the freedom to inspect and change how the software behaves. ✦ AI generated
Author (Hacker News comment) · Simon Willison's Weblog · 2026-08-03 · original ↗
One of the arguments for open source software for end-users has always been the freedom to examine and modify how that software works.
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gives example → Getting software to compile in order to hack on it used to be enough friction that I often wouldn't bother, but now I treat building and checkout as a zero-time-investment challenge delegated to Codex or Claude Code.Author (Hacker News comment) · Simon Willison's Webloggives example → I routinely prompt Claude to clone a GitHub repo and explain how part of it works.Author (Hacker News comment) · Simon Willison's Weblogextends → LLMs have changed the equation in a way that makes the original open-source dream of examining and modifying code much more feasible.Author (Hacker News comment) · Simon Willison's Weblogextends → I'm not habitually modifying the software I use yet, but I can see a path to that which didn't exist a year or so ago.Author (Hacker News comment) · Simon Willison's Weblog