I'm serious.

Yash, a high school intern, arrived with a user script that reverse-engineered T3 Chat's Webpack bundle to add features — including running local AI models client-side — despite the codebase being closed source. His approach fundamentally differed from industry veterans: he perceived no boundaries between codebases. Where experienced developers learned to work around dependency issues to avoid dealing with other teams, Yash simply opened the code and fixed it, quadrupling the project's patch-package count in two weeks.

This philosophy extended to ambitious changes. When tasked with implementing progressive image generation, Yash patch-packaged the AI SDK itself to add image generation support, deprecated existing workarounds, and made the entire implementation more stable. Initially terrifying to the team, this approach proved correct when the AI SDK later added official image gen support and the patch was cleanly removed. The realization was stark: a developer half the creator's age had a healthier relationship with software boundaries than someone who spent years at companies like Twitch navigating bureaucratic approval chains.

The implications rippled outward. If modifying dependencies is this straightforward — especially with AI assistance making patches and forks cheaper to maintain — the entire industry's defensive posture around closed source deserves reconsideration. Yash demonstrated that treating all code as potentially modifiable, regardless of where it lives, unlocks both productivity and deeper understanding of the systems we depend on.

Claude Code represents the most indefensible closed-source decision in recent memory. A terminal application — built explicitly for ease of integration — remains closed while Anthropic DMCAs anyone who shares the source maps they accidentally shipped. The team's justification, per Boris, was that it contained «secret sauce» too valuable to release. In reality, it wasn't even the first agentic harness; it was simply the first one with a subscription model that gained traction.

The hypocrisy deepens when comparing to competitors. Gemini CLI is open source. Open Code is open source. Even Codex CLI open-sourced their entire app server, enabling third-party tools like T3 Code to integrate seamlessly. Anthropic stands alone in closing what should be the most open part of their stack, while simultaneously shipping a buggy, unreliable product that users can't fix themselves. The creator's conclusion: they're ashamed of the code quality and hiding behind «secret sauce» rhetoric.

The community's complicity is equally frustrating. Despite the closed nature and degrading quality, developers continue to promote Claude Code as the premier solution, normalizing this behavior. Until Anthropic faces consequences — whether reputational or through users migrating to open alternatives — nothing will change. The only justified stance is to assume the code is closed because the team is embarrassed by what AI helped them create.