> there's no upside to publishing open source work because it might be utilized by more people, is that correct?

I believe the perspective here is "I make code for fellow hackers to look into, critique, be educated on, or simply play with". If you see the hacker scene as a social one, LLM's are an awful black hole that sucks up everything around it and ruins this collaboration.

Not to mention that the hacker scene was traditionally thought to be a rejection of what we now call "Big Tech". Corporate was free to grab the code, but it didn't matter much as long as the scene was kept. Now even that invisible social contract is broken.

But I suppose if you're of a diehard FOSS mentality, "Free" means "Free". Free to be used to build, or destroy society at its whim. a hivemind to meld into and progress the overall understanding of science, for science's sake.

I'll admit the last few years have had me questioning what I truly want to do within the on these two mentalities.