The Open Source Ward Weekly (12 August 2025)

The AI race continues. Last week, OpenAI released two open-source models alongside GPT-5, and Claude released Opus 4.1. Many of the tools trending in this week’s newsletter are linked to this wave (coding assistants, AI-assisted app generation/design, etc.).

Dyad - A locally and open-sourced Lovable

Lovable is the fastest-growing European start-up ever, valued at $1.8 billion less than two years after its creation and beating every revenue milestone. Their core product lets you create apps without coding using AI.

Dyad offers a similar capability but runs locally, which is always interesting from a privacy perspective. You can use the LLM provider of your choice as long as you have a valid API key (though, okay, privacy is still an issue).

Although I’m still very skeptical about the ability of these tools to generate production-ready applications. That said, they do allow product managers to create and iterate on prototypes before engaging with dev teams, helping them arrive at a more refined vision and a clearer direction (always nice).

Crush - AI-assisted codind in your favorite terminal

You’re a leet developer, forged in the fires of weird IDEs and funky linting packages. You want to ride the AI-assisted dev wave but refuse to trade your beloved stack for a VS Code fork (hi, Cursor 👋).

Worry no more, Crush lets you integrate AI directly into your workflow.

The project is backed by CharmBracelet, a well-known player in the CLI ecosystem, famous for their love of bubble tea, kawaii design, and, of course, serious coding chops (don’t worry, they’re also absolute beasts at it).

SuperDesign - AI design agent for our IDE

SuperDesign is an open-source design agent that lives right inside your IDE. Generate UI mockups, components, and wireframes directly from natural language prompts. Works seamlessly with Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code, and plain VS Code.

AI Goofish Monitor - Smarter Selling on Goofish (China’s Secondhand Marketplace)

If you’ve never heard of Goofish, think of it as China’s version of eBay or Facebook Marketplace, a massive secondhand goods platform owned by Alibaba.

AI Goofish Monitor is a multi-task, real-time monitoring and analysis tool powered by Playwright and AI filtering. It can track multiple keywords, analyze new listings in real time using multimodal models, and push notifications straight to your phone or desktop.

In the news

GitHub just got less independent at Microsoft after CEO resignation

GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke has resigned after nearly four years, planning to return to startup life, and Microsoft will not replace his role. Instead, GitHub’s leadership will now report directly to Microsoft’s CoreAI team, further integrating the platform into Microsoft’s AI-focused structure. This shift eliminates GitHub’s independent CEO role, aligning its operations more closely with CoreAI’s mission to build AI platforms and tools.

Why did OpenAI just released two open source models

OpenAI recently open-sourced two less advanced models, gpt-oss-120B and gpt-oss-20B, and we are wondering why such moves were made. Is it to attract developers through a “freemium funnel,” generate hype, shape public perception, and maintain relevance amid intensifying AI competition? It may also serve internal business goals, such as boosting valuation and giving employees opportunities to sell shares at higher prices, potentially reducing staff turnover.