Yup, it's the main reason I don't use LM studio more. I only use it to try out new models/quants, then use llama.cpp directly to host them. LM Studio also doesn't do stuff like audio input and often has bugs that pure llama.cpp doesn't so it can be a net negative for certain use cases.
I am aware of it, and I dabble with Unsloth Studio and use the llama-server approach.
I would obviously prefer an open source, open weights stack.
But I guess a paradox is that as long as there are open source options I could use, a solid agentic environment that I can use with my own open weights is something I might pay for, in a similar sort of way to paying for a Mac when I could use only Linux.
If someone wanted to make their entire income from, say, making the BBEdit of LLM harnesses, that would be a viable strategy. Sooner or later people need to make an income somewhere. My own feeling is that Apple should acquire LM Studio, but if they said "this is $X per year" I might consider it, given the attention to detail.
I seriously don't understand the apple glazing. They are pretty much completely out of the picture and are one of the most anti consumer anti open-source companies. Yet developers STILL hope for Apple acquisitions and being saved... Or something like that...
We have llama.cpp, vLLM, opencode, hermes and countless other mature great open source tools that don't require a anti-consumer company's hands in the jar.
OK. Not sure I agree Opencode is mature, having used it enough and seen the source code, but if that is the level of attention to detail that now qualifies as “mature” then I understand why my comment upset people so much and I apologise.
I think it ought to be possible to understand my comment without assuming it is Apple fandom; it’s not.
I am just one of those developers who use Linux daily as a remote/VM work environment, from a MacBook, from personal choice. I have for decades. There is a kubuntu laptop on my desk too (a Framework) which is fine; I have more or less always had GUI linux around too. But my own LLM dabbling is happening on an M1 Max, like so many others, because I am not a gamer or home build PC guy (this century at least) so I don’t have a PC with a GPU. (Yet. I am LLM-cynical but I can see running a dedicated machine for this in principle)
The suggestion about Apple (who I don’t believe are yet “out of the picture” in any meaningful sense) acquiring LM Studio was an idle reflection on them being the most Apple-ish of the options, that’s all. They need something; LM Studio is closest to what they need.
I would guess it's because Apple are a hardware vendor that at least talks about privacy as a selling point.
The M series chips provide large amounts of GPU RAM so I think people can see a world where Apple sells local first, privacy focused, inference based on hardware sales.
I'm not pitching Apple as the best or only solution, I'm saying that selling local inference seems to fit with their current marketing goals.
Selling high end, high margin computers that have lots available GPU RAM with at least lip service to local inference for privacy fits with what they already do.
I don't see anything to stop say Framework making the same pitch but with Linux but since Framework don't design their own chips they don't have quite so many levers to pull as Apple do.
Sure you can ... simply start by taking donations to benefit all mankind and then once you have done enough of that go private, ipo and join the tres commas club.
Sure. I still don't think it's particularly controversial to acknowledge that the two don't necessarily align either, and that neither really incentivizes the other.
Less unanimous and debatable, but many would say they more often do not align than the opposite.
Social progress is literally the story of labor saving devices. Creating more with less labor means a society of relative abundance, with more time for education, creativity, leisure and personal growth. Don't be fooled into thinking LLMs are any different to the tractor, the loom, the calculator, or shoe factories in the third world.
Don't be fooled into thinking that the tractor or the loom brought about positive social progress.
It wasn't the machines that caused the social progress. It was the organised labour movements (and the variously destructive or violent sabotage movements) pushing back against the machines that made the social progress.
The tractor and the loom made life noticeably worse for the people they replaced until they organised against them, and even then it took decades for them to get back the limited kind of quality of life (and health) an agricultural worker might have had.
I do find it interesting how many AI people make tractor and loom analogies without the slightest grasp of the true history of the industrial revolution.
Any social progress that comes from AI will not be something AI people can claim as their success, because it will have happened at their expense. There will be pushback; it may be violent.
The suggestion that violence may be necessary does not strengthen your argument, it exposes its weakness. A movement that cannot defend its ideals without romanticising destructive force is not protecting social progress. It is to fundamentally misunderstand where social progress comes from, or what represents a good life.
As for the rest, it's a remarkably selective account of the industrial revolution. Your argument relies upon the unspoken inference that pre-industrial agricultural life was somehow a better life that was diminished by progress.
The tractor did not merely replace farm workers. It allowed a tiny fraction of the population to produce vastly more food while releasing millions of people from exhausting agricultural labour. Perhaps you would prefer a life of hard physical labour, low output, poor medicine, food insecurity, and little protection against injury, disease, or harvest failure. Perhaps you don't like that you toil away in an air-conditioned office writing video game code, for a salary that you wish was higher, because you dread the cost of your next smartphone purchase.
Technological change created enormous productivity gains. Yes, these often unfairly disadvantage workers trained in the outgoing industries. But I don't hear you arguing for a return to hand-weaving, because the societal benefit of progress is inarguable.
> Social progress is literally the story of labor saving devices.
Historically it was not. They are two mostly unrelated things. Creating more with less labor can mean the richest getting richer while middle class becomes poor and poor become hopelessly poor.
> Creating more with less labor means a society of relative abundance, with more time for education, creativity, leisure and personal growth.
It never meant that, this is fairly tale. We got 40 hours workweek rather then 80 hours workweek because of political movements and fights, not because of technology. Labor saving device, on itself, leads to two outcomes: you work as much as before, but produce more (cue all the burned out overworked ai coders) or you get unemployed desperately looking for new work.
Political movements influenced how abundance was shared. They did not create that abundance.
Production and consumption are directly linked: societies can consume only what they produce. When individuals become more productive, society has more to consume. And indeed there is more. So much more. What you call a "fairy tale" is, thankfully, the world we live in.
When considering prosperity, it's important to emphasise what's real. So what if Warren Buffett owns a massive number of shares in notionally highly valued corporations? There are plenty of carrots available in the supermarket, and at an extraordinarily low prices by historical standards. Warren Buffett is not personally consuming some grotesquely disproportionate share of the carrots ... or pretty much any commodity which constitutes real material prosperity.
I'm interested in your thought process. How did you get from his initial statement opening of "A friendly reminder ..." to thinking that this was a scandal?
It's a common discussion trope to imply malfeasance in response to good news, which is a way to non-constructively shut down a conversation particularly without elaboration. In this particular case I legit didn't understand what the OP was actually implying because they did not elaborate.