Ever since the rise of the Linux computer operating system, open source technology’s combination of defensive and disruptive properties has made it a powerful weapon in the tech world.
IBM famously used Linux as a counterweight to Microsoft, limiting the spread of Windows and preventing Microsoft from dominating the market for computer servers as it had PCs. Free software also threatened to eat into Microsoft’s main profit-earner, prompting then-CEO Steve Ballmer to call it a cancer on commercial technology.
So why would companies that are pouring tens of billions of dollars into advanced AI models, making them most at risk from open source competition, suddenly seem so interested in launching free, open versions of their own products?