Emily Omier, a consultant for open source businesses and host of the Business of Open Source podcast, added that such attempts to “corrupt” the meaning behind “open source” is testament to its inherent power.
“It goes to show how strong the brand of open source is — the fact that people are trying to corrupt it, means that people care,” Omier said during the panel discussion.
Much of this may be for regulatory reasons, however. The EU AI Act has a special carve-out for “free and open source” AI systems (aside from those deemed to pose an “unacceptable risk”). And Villa says this goes some way toward explaining why a company might want to rewrite the rulebook on what “open source” actually means.