Roel.io

Open-source communities and disappearing friction

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 22:47:00 +0200

Open-source communities grew from the outside in for decades. Due to friction. People with questions appeared on forums, IRC or in an issue tracker. And gradually moved to more inner circles of the community.

The advent of LLM’s changed this, and Mara Averick eloquently describes how AI is absorbing the visible friction that open-source communities have always relied on to see - and welcome - newcomers:

The playbook for building and sustaining open-source communities—accumulated over decades by a lot of people who took the question seriously—assumed newcomers would keep becoming visible on their own. Nobody wrote that assumption down, because nobody had to. Now that it’s failing, the playbook has to change.

You could say that open-source projects are in some way inherently LLM-friendly:

source code is publicly available
active projects often have extensive public documentation

Justin Duke, Buttondown’s founder, noted something similar when writing about the growth Buttondown is seeing from LLM’s. He is looking into how he can increase friction for new users so the support load will not overwhelm the team. Open-source projects may need to definte new ways of imposing friction, too?

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 22:06:46 +0200

Q: “Wat ik nu wel kan waarderen?” A: Nieuwsgierige theezakjes.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:56:08 +0200

Soms moet je gewoon even naar de kapper.

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 22:12:13 +0200

This will happen:

Five thousand years in the future, anthropologists studying our electronic debris will conclude that our civilization believed the definition of a human was “a creature that can properly identify crosswalks.”

One of The 40 Most Rage-Inducing Problems in Tech

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:12:24 +0200

People with weird haircuts not allowed. 🚫

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 19:20:08 +0200

How AI companies actually make money:

Acquiring one grape costs Alex $2 billion. Alex offers to sell Mike one grape a month for the next 12 months for $1 billion per grape. Alex asks for the full $12 billion up front and provides Mike with one grape for the first month. Alex makes a $10 billion profit this month; his ARR is $120 billion, and his profits are trending up at an infinite rate. The Wall Street Journal’s business editor moves into Alex’s house, having accepted a part-time position as Alex’s human footstool. He never asks to see the books.

Very enlightening.

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 14:20:47 +0200

Yesterday I brought my camera to a local cycling race, experimenting with how to visualize it. I posted a selection on Glass. These are 2 of my favourites:

Sun, 24 May 2026 17:11:19 +0200

Omdat Felienne Hermans een social-vrije mei-maand heeft plug ik haar nieuwsbrief van deze week maar even: www.felienne.nl/2026-21/

Wed, 13 May 2026 08:48:22 +0200

An iOS app just asked me to share my age range. First example of the Declared Age Range API I encountered in the wild. From a ‘software brain’ perspective, it makes sense to handle this on the (mobile) OS level. But I still like the Yivi approach better (personal control, digital autonomy).

Sun, 10 May 2026 12:45:00 +0200

Ran my first official 21K today! 💪

Fri, 08 May 2026 15:46:08 +0200

Pfff, weer een klant waar ik niet meer kan inloggen in Microsoft365 omdat ineens Microsoft Authenticator vereist wordt. En ik een eigen TOTP-app gebruik. En de ICT-leverancier beweert dat het moet van Microsoft, zonder dit te kunnen onderbouwen waarom het veiliger zou zijn. Zucht…

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:47:08 +0200

Van het weekend zag ik bij iemand een Don’t Panic wallpaper op z’n telefoon. Beetje nerd cred natuurlijk, maar ook wel fijn om te zien voordat je je telefoon pakt om weer te gaan doomscrollen. Dus mijn telefoon is nu ook geruststellend. :)

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 19:48:22 +0200

Werk-update: Na bijna 12 maanden werk hebben we vandaag een nieuw platform voor de 67.000 mensen in Nederland met een parkinsonisme, hun naasten, en betrokken zorgverleners gelanceerd. Met betrouwbare informatie, ondersteuning en plek voor het uitwisselen van ervaringen: www.parkinson.nl

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 18:12:54 +0200

Na jarenlang een simpele pagina te hebben gebruikt als ZZP-uithangbord, heb ik daar toch maar eens aandacht aan besteed.

Nog steeds een onepager, nu met projectinformatie, betere typografie en witruimte, subtiele animatie. Op een nieuwe, logischer URL: www.roelgroeneveld.nl

AI is gewoon gereedschap

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 23:26:25 +0200

Niemanlab over hoe de NY TImes generatieve AI inzet voor data-analyse en onderzoeksjournalistiek:

Built in-house and known internally as the “Manosphere Report,” the tool uses large language models (LLMs) to transcribe and summarize new episodes of dozens of podcasts.

When one of the shows publishes a new episode, the tool automatically downloads it, transcribes it, and summarizes the transcript. Every 24 hours the tool collates those summaries and generates a meta-summary with shared talking points and other notable daily trends. The final report is automatically emailed to journalists each morning at 8 a.m. ET. Currently, the tool is used by nearly 40 reporters across the newsroom.

Dat klinkt als nuttig gereedschap.

Via Erik Jonker.

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 22:37:09 +0200

Rusty Foster in A.I. Isn’t People:

I’ve watched all three of my children learn what a cat is, and in each case the number of pictures of a cat they needed to see was not “all of them.” It was like, two or three? Half a dozen, tops. I helped them learn to speak and read fluently, and the number of Reddit posts required was not “every Reddit post.” I don’t need to know what mechanism underlies human intelligence to rule out the possibility that it’s the same as what a large language model does.

Via onfocus.com.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

Mon, 23 Feb 2026 23:49:53 +0200

Wat een indrukwekkende film is Mr. Nobody Against Putin (Letterboxd). 🍿

Het verhaal draait om Pavel Talankin, leraar en videograaf op een middelbare school diep in Rusland. Daar brengt hij stiekem in beeld hoe, na de start van de oorlog in Oekraïne, het schoolleven stapsgewijs verandert in een propagandamachine.

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 11:17:46 +0200

Kun je een startup opzetten met (bijna) alleen Europese diensten en zelf-gehoste software? Het kan, bewees Robert Heide, maar vergt meer uitzoekwerk dan het gebruik van Amerikaanse hyperscalers.

Blood Over Bright Haven - M.L. Wang

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 21:09:33 +0200

Finished reading: Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang

In our local bookstore, some books are wrapped in personal recommendations of the book sellers. This was one of those, and it did not disappoint.

A strong female protagonist breaks through the glass ceiling and reaches the highest levels of the mage elite. In a society where women are not supposed to excel, she has to keep proving herself even after becoming a high mage. But then she discovers a secret that upends her world view completely.

Set in a world with a unique magic system, with very good storytelling, I couldn’t put it down. Finished it in two days. Recommended. 📚

P.S. It’s also nice to read a standalone fantasy book that wraps up a story in a single book. 😉

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:44:13 +0200

Interesting story by an open source maintainer who got attacked by an OpenClaw AI bot after its submission was rejected. If you follow AI developments, this capability is not surprising. And maybe the tech bro style it used shouldn’t also be.

Thu, 12 Feb 2026 20:29:44 +0200

I’m getting really tired of that deceptive design pattern in MacOS Software Update, where the upgrade to MacOS Tahoe is magically enabled. No, I don’t want to upgrade. Don’t force me. Yet another reason to get out of the Apple ecosystem as my devices get older…

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 10:58:40 +0200

Het verbaast me niets, maar het is toch confronterend hoeveel essentiële onderdelen van Nederland in een Amerikaanse cloud draaien. En dus stilvallen als er sancties worden afgekondigd.

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 15:47:12 +0200

Lovely write-up on how Markdown achieved world domination, by Anil Dash.

I remember its announcement, am still amazed at how omnipresent it now is, but had forgotten that Aaron Swartz was involved in its creation.

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 21:54:03 +0200

Sterke column over DARVO, Flood the Zone en Grok deepfakes in de Volkskrant (betaalmuur) van Sander Schimmelpenninck:

Dit is het niveau in Nederland. Terwijl onze vijanden via sociale media en AI de wereld bedwelmen met leugens en AI-fabricages, zitten wij te kijken naar clowns die niet eens het verschil snappen tussen algoritmes en deepfakes.

(DARVO uitgelegd op Wikipedia)

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:02:35 +0200

Als je voetbal wel kan waarderen als ‘belangrijkste bijzaak’ in het leven is dit een heerlijke aflevering van Men in Blazers met John Oliver: www.youtube.com/watch