I suppose at this point, a lot of HNers are too young to remember hacker optimism or idealism of earlier internet (and pre-internet eras). Those old enough probably partially discount it... naivety is hard to recall.
FOSS, and openness broadly never made traditional business sense. But... success creates new types of business sense. By 2000, the early 1990s idea that AOL could have beaten the WWW was "OMG! Remember those naive boomers!"
The power of openness was proven by some point. Google, among others, created an empire in that world. Everything they did was WWW, lived on linux and they outpaced MSFT like a new breed. The Fact that Open was powerful was plain. The only questions were why and how.
Wintel had beaten Apple as a "platform" because it was more distributed. More Open = more distributed.... that's why Google and WWW were smashing MSFT. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Information wants to be free. Billion dollar industries will give way to a million dollar side gig.
It's easier to weave these threads when external reality has already confirmed the conclusion. "Traditional Business Sense" about IP ownership, control, secrecy, competition and such was a dinosaur. It never went away though.
Times change. Culture changes. Business landscapes change.
OpenAi is, because of the name, almost comical. One apparent driving factor is that being closed helps shield OpenAI from criticism, liability and whatnot. simonwillison is more or less demonstrating this here.
FOSS, and openness broadly never made traditional business sense. But... success creates new types of business sense. By 2000, the early 1990s idea that AOL could have beaten the WWW was "OMG! Remember those naive boomers!"
The power of openness was proven by some point. Google, among others, created an empire in that world. Everything they did was WWW, lived on linux and they outpaced MSFT like a new breed. The Fact that Open was powerful was plain. The only questions were why and how.
Wintel had beaten Apple as a "platform" because it was more distributed. More Open = more distributed.... that's why Google and WWW were smashing MSFT. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Information wants to be free. Billion dollar industries will give way to a million dollar side gig.
It's easier to weave these threads when external reality has already confirmed the conclusion. "Traditional Business Sense" about IP ownership, control, secrecy, competition and such was a dinosaur. It never went away though.
Times change. Culture changes. Business landscapes change.
OpenAi is, because of the name, almost comical. One apparent driving factor is that being closed helps shield OpenAI from criticism, liability and whatnot. simonwillison is more or less demonstrating this here.