Press mentions

July 29, 2026

Open weights vs. closed: An AI civil war’s afoot, and the stakes are existential

ZDNET

The difference between open-source AI and weights, according to the Open Source Initiative (OSI), is that open weights usually means the trained weights are available, but not necessarily the full training data or source code. The two terms are frequently conflated. The OSI itself declared, “Every AI system in the headlines today, whether proprietary or open source, exists because researchers shared their work openly.” Without open source, there is no AI.

July 25, 2026

‘Open-Washing’ Is Everywhere in AI. Four Criteria Cut Through It

Tech Policy Press

“Open-source” is not a marketing register. It is a standard with specific criteria. For over two decades, the Open Source Initiative has maintained the definition that governs the term in software: the freedom to use, study, modify, and share, for anyone and for any purpose. In 2024, recognizing that model releases were stretching the label past recognition, OSI extended this into the Open Source AI Definition, which requires disclosure of the complete code used in training and sufficiently detailed information about the training data for others to understand and recreate the system.

June 18, 2026

Open Source Is the Inevitable End State for AI

Techstrong

Open source is no longer just a software movement — it is the foundation the entire AI stack is built on, from CUDA to Kubernetes to the models themselves. Duane O’Brien, the new Executive Director of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), joins Alan Shimel on TechStrong TV to talk about the organization that has shepherded the Open Source Definition since 1998, why OSI-approved licenses are the Good Housekeeping Seal of the software world, and how OSI is taking on its biggest challenge yet — defining what open source actually means in the age of AI.

June 1, 2026

G7 Digital and Technology Ministerial Declaration

G7 UK

Our Vision on AI openness opportunities and shared language aims to provide greater clarity in the use of terminology describing AI openness. We expect this Vision to help extend the existing benefits of AI openness in science, innovation, and economic growth, as highlighted in the OECD G7 Discussion paper on The Benefits of AI Openness, while ensuring trust in technologies and access to a greater diversity of models. We welcome the valuable contribution of the Open Source Initiative, as well as other members of the community, in supporting the development of this document.

May 8, 2026

Why age assurance laws matter for developers

GitHub

Whether through contacting elected representatives in states considering these proposals like California, Colorado, Illinois, and New York, contributing to Brazil’s Digital ECA public consultation, or engaging with organizations like the Open Source Initiative, or through foundations that steward projects that may be impacted like the FreeBSD Foundation and Debian, there are concrete ways for developers to share their perspectives—helping ensure these policies both support children’s digital safety and reflect technical realities, align with regulatory intent, and avoid unintended harm to the open source ecosystem.

April 28, 2026

Asserting American Leadership in Open Source AI

a16z

The definition of “open source software” is maintained by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), which focuses on 10 specific conditions that a copyright license must meet. OSI has undertaken an effort to extend this definition to AI with the OSAID, an effort that remains ongoing.

March 26, 2026

How to engage with policy makers when you’re a developer (not a lobbyist)

We Love Open Source

tate AI regulations aren’t differentiating between developers and deployers, impacting open source contributors who could be held responsible for downstream uses they don’t control. In this episode, Katie Steen-James, Senior US Policy Manager at the Open Source Initiative, joins the We Love Open Source podcast to share how developers can engage with policy makers, why the Federal Register matters, and what the developer versus deployer distinction means for protecting open source.

March 25, 2026

Open source isn’t a tip jar – it’s time to charge for access

The Register

We have the Linux Foundation to manage commercial open source projects, the Apache Foundation to oversee its various open source programs, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) to coordinate open source licenses, and many more for various specific projects. It’s time we had an organization with the mission of ensuring that the top programmers and maintainers of valuable open source projects get a cut of the tech billionaire pie.

March 6, 2026

What the India AI Summit Leader’s Declaration Means for the Future of the Digital Commons

Tech Policy Press

The Open Source Initiative’s definition for open source AI attempts to take this one step further, requiring developers to release not only model weights, but also the training scripts used to create training datasets, as well as detailed information on the composition of training datasets, and there is still room for that definition to expand it further to also share the datasets.

March 3, 2026

React Moves to Open Governance

The New Stack

“Developers involved in projects that move to a neutral foundation … benefit from the separation of business … and technology in its governance,” Bryant says. “Business leadership and investment in non-technical concerns – legal, funding, marketing, community events, and so forth – are addressed, while developers are able to focus on collectively driving the technology roadmap and releasing code.”

December 24, 2025

Where code meets community

China Daily

From AI to embodied intelligence, COSCon 2025 revealed how open source thrives through shared ideas, volunteer effort and cross-border cooperation.

Beyond technical frontiers, Jiang also reflected COSCon’s growing international reach. Overseas guests included representatives from organizations such as the Open Source Initiative, OpenChain, and Open-UK, making this year’s gathering the largest to date in terms of international participation.