Meta is winning the open source AI story by using the term to push a large language model (LLM) that is not open source. But really, the Meta camp can call open source whatever it wants. AI creates a paradox for the open source community. On one side are the open pragmatists and on the other are the ones who want open source AI to be aspirational and true to its principles. The problem: open source is diminishing in meaning as AI LLM providers call their services open source whether they are or not. But underlying the arguments is a complexity not seen in the open source community since the Open Source Initiative defined open source more than two decades ago. What we see: a stewardship question that allows for the exploitation of open source while the parties all push their own version of truth. OSI is working on a definition. But will it have the gravitas and the backing of the community? Right now, that’s an open question. Open source has succumbed to linguistic drift partly due to a lack of stewardship of the language that defines open source, said Ashley Williams in an interview with The New Stack. Williams is the founder and CEO of Axo, a packaging and distribution platform for developers building portable and secure software; she co-founded the Rust Foundation and is recognized as an open source strategist. Stewardship is more than the OSI managing the definitions and keeping course, she said Language changes over time. It becomes a matter of how people use the language. “I really mean stewardship of what the colloquial definition of open source means,” Williams said. “And I think that there are a couple of dimensions to how that stewardship got dropped.” Open source started as a way for developers to create software that they could fix instead of being dependent on Microsoft. Later, open source commercial entities adopted open source, leading to more people in business technology roles shaping commercial open source — people who had the role of director or other titles.
Full opinion : Why the open source in Open Source AI is a lie.
