this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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In a move clearly designed to strengthen its position among developers, OpenAI has acquired Python tool maker Astral. The house of Altman expects the deal to strengthen the ecosystem for its Codex programming agent.

Since its founding in 2022 by Charlie Marsh, Astral has won over a substantial portion of the Python community with Rust-based tools like uv (package and project manager), Ruff (linting and formatting), and ty (type checker) that outperform Python-based tools like pip.

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[–] Solumbran@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

Better title:

Astral products now defunct, SlopMachines make another victim.

[–] xep@discuss.online 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] throws_lemy@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

sigh, now I need to find an alternative to uv

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)
[–] throws_lemy@lemmy.nz 1 points 4 weeks ago

yeah, I guess I’ll have to switch to poetry unless someone fork it

[–] Everyday0764@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

I know. But not for long. 😞

[–] axum@lemmy.blahaj.zone -2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No you don't, don't be stupid. uv is open source, and this just funds that project. Don't gaslight yourself.

[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 weeks ago

I know gaslight has lost all meaning but this might be worst use I've seen yet

[–] rhymepurple@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 weeks ago

I generally agree with this. Unless OpenAI has a track record of being poor stewards of open source projects, then right now the concern is mostly FUD.

However, this is a bit aggressive. It is appropriate to be skeptical about the intent of a controversial company acquiring another company that made a few popular open source projects or of the future state of those open source projects.

Just because a popular open source project is well liked today doesn't mean the community will be happy with the project in the future or even that the project will forever remain open source. Some notable recent examples include Redis, Terraform, and CentOS.

[–] errer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Back to conda for me!

…wait no that’s a fate worse than death

[–] wingswithbones@lemmus.org 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Monopoly phase of extinguishing competition

[–] TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

How are they competition? Astral's tools solve the same problems for humans and AI.

[–] wingswithbones@lemmus.org -2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I’m not sure if you’re serious but now this company is no longer competing in the market against companies like OpenAI and is instead owned by OpenAI

I honestly cannot help you if that is not enough for you to understand the basic issue

[–] TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They were not competing before? Astral's product is private package repo's. Maybe that will get abandoned but the FOSS projects are safe.

[–] wingswithbones@lemmus.org 0 points 4 weeks ago

the team that used to work on Astral now works for OpenAI and will now only operate under its direction and for its interests. Whatever you’re talking about is a separate issue

[–] PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 month ago

Well that's a fucking disaster. BIG hate for this sellout.

[–] parzival@lemmy.org 2 points 1 month ago

Godamnit I just switched to astral

[–] melfie@lemy.lol 2 points 4 weeks ago

I was recently eyeing uv, but guess I’ll stick with Poetry.

[–] awake@lemmy.wtf 2 points 4 weeks ago

I’ve tried uv a week ago for the first time and liked the workflow. I hope there will be a fork that’s not under OpenAI.