$8.8 trillion. Yes, with a T.
In 2024, my friend Frank Nagle (et al.) at Harvard Business School dropped a paper titled The Value of Open Source Software
https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/24-038_51f8444f-502c-4139-8bf2-56eb4b65c58a.pdf
It’s not light reading, but here’s the TL;DR:
* Supply-side value of creating and maintaining popular open source software? About $4.15 billion.
* Demand-side replacement cost if companies had to rebuild that OSS themselves? A casual $8.8 trillion.
Let that sink in. Open source software is quietly propping up the global economy like a tired BOFH running on coffee and unpaid emotional labor.
And how do we reward open source maintainers, the unsung heroes keeping the digital world upright?
Enter the AI Slop Era.
Take @bagder — creator and lead maintainer of cURL and libcurl — two of the most widely used OSS projects in existence. Instead of sipping margaritas on a beach somewhere (as he should be), he's busy triaging nonsense AI-generated “exploits” reported via HackerOne.
Want a peek into his inbox of doom?
1. HackerOne cURL Hacktivity https://hackerone.com/curl/hacktivity?type=teamFilter
2. Filter by: Report State = Not Applicable
3. Feel: 😬 existential dread
This is what happens when people feed vibe-code into an LLM, squint, and hit “submit.”
So, what can you do?
* Using AI to vibe-code security bugs? Please stop. Seriously. Shut the laptop. Go touch grass. Maybe talk to a human.
* Using OSS in your business? Chances are, you are. Time to give back — with funding, sponsorships, or actual engineering help.
* Using OSS personally? Thank a maintainer. Donate. Contribute. Even fixing a typo in the README helps.
Open source built the internet. It’s still holding it together with duct tape and goodwill.
Let’s treat it — and the people behind it — like the $8.8 trillion miracle it is.
#aislop #opensourcesoftware #security #cybersecurity #touchgrass
