Why open weights are not open source, in a new essay on AI’s category problem
aronchick · x · 2026-07-28
- The post points to a long essay arguing that people keep calling open weights and open models “open source,” even though the author says that is misleading.
- The article revisits why the term open source was coined in 1998: to focus on source access rather than price.
- It contrasts true source availability with “free binaries” style distribution, where users can run something but cannot inspect, rebuild, or carry it forward.
- The author argues that open-weight AI is not the same thing as open source and frames the debate as a category error around what users actually receive when they download a model.
Related event: Industry Debates: Open Weights Are Not True Open Source(4 posts)→
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