None of your arguments hold any water if big-corpo AI restricts open-weight models - which they very clearly want to do. AI is NOT “the best thing that ever happened to the Free Software world” if our only option is to pay a select few companies to use it.

▲

roenxi 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Those arguments are independent of the state of OSS models. There appears to be no moat whatsoever on creating state of the art models commercially - the US threw the kitchen sink at China in terms of sanctions and barriers ... yet it has been unable to keep Chinese companies away from the frontier (arguably ahead in small local models with Qwen). Even if all the models were proprietary we'd expect the costs and capabilities to be widely available. The Europeans might even be able to field their own advanced models eventually.

OSS models are strategically important, but that is a different matter to getting value out of them for OSS software development.

	▲	amlib 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Consumers are way too fickle to pursue open models en masse. Even if they are 90% as good and fairly easy to use (works acceptably on most machines, easy installation, whatever), they will still go for the ones controlled by big corportions/big tech. Look at how consumers deal with free, open source software, alternate Operating Systems, alternate social networks, alternate search engines, alternate chat protocols... even when the barriers are low they just don't give a damn. I honestly think most people would choose to join the Borg out of sheer convenience. It's futile to think this won't happen with AI.
	▲	shevy-java 17 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		IMO, AI will have the same problems no matter which area or country uses it to dominate over others.

▲

TeMPOraL 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Big corporations can't do shit about open-weight models that already exist, because those are... just bags of floats. Once released, there is no unreleasing them. The Internet never forgets.

Download the files as they come out if you're worried, but there's no way to roll LLMs back beyond what we have in open-weight models right now. It's a ratchet.

▲

LogicFailsMe 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Big entertainment has been trying to restrict the distribution of movies online since that became possible, how's that going for them?

▲

ThrowawayR2 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The long term trend seems to be in their favor as governments want to include more traceability and ability to shut down sites into the Internet for their own reasons which will help the entertainment industry as a byproduct. Plus they can use LLMs just as much as anyone else in their quest to build better roadblocks.

▲

wpietri 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Pretty well, honestly. Somebody with both technical knowledge and familiarity with a particular subculture can get access to entertainment videos with some work. But they've managed to keep piracy economically negligible. Basically everybody uses streaming services, 90% of US households pay for at least 1, and the average household pays for 4. [1]

Brand was wrong. Information doesn't want to be free, just cheap.

[1] https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/how-much-us-households-spen...

▲

998244353 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You can watch a lot of TV series online on some random pirate sites by simply googling "show x free online". It doesn't even require the relatively simple technical knowledge of using a BitTorrent client.

▲

Marha01 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is only the case because streaming services today are so cheap and convenient. Jack up the price, or decrease the convenience, and see people sail the high seas en masse again..

	▲	LogicFailsMe 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed, the origin stories of these streaming services are deeply intertwined with combating piracy if you go back 20+ years. And I agree, if they outlaw open weight models, then only outlaws will have open weight models. But good luck finding and prosecuting the outlaws beyond a few whales.

▲

mitxela 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Quite well. Lots of people in jail and it's quite obscure how to download movies as a casual.

▲

SuperV1234 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We have open-source models, and they're getting better and better.

▲

smitty1e 17 hours ago | parent | next [-]

But, rather that a wide Edenic expanse of communication, we seem headed toward walled gardens with gatekeepers and a need to pay money for all the usual reasons.

This seems both inevitable, and an occasion to tout the https://www.fsf.org

▲

jasonvorhe 17 hours ago | parent [-]

Eh? Where exactly is that a reality though? I just spent like 20$ last week on various Chinese frontier models using openrouter and ppq building like 10 different projects that would've cost way more than double or quadruple per token at the big 3 if I didn't have those alternative options. Hell, for small tasks I even fell back to a local 27b Qwen model.

	▲	hackmetothemoon 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

▲

janice1999 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

... if you can afford the ever increasing cost of hardware, a rise directly caused by the same AI companies.

	▲	Marha01 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think it will be ever-increasing. It might last a long time, but sooner or later supply will increase to meet the demand (or the demand will drop, or both) and hardware will be cheap again.

▲

nycdotnet 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

for now.

▲

TeMPOraL 17 hours ago | parent [-]

They will literally never get worse. It's a one-way street.

▲

nycdotnet 17 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree. The question is if they will remain legal.

▲

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 17 hours ago | parent [-]

The law doesn't prevent someone from doing or using something. It punishes them for doing or using something (if caught), but never prevents.

If laws had the power to prevent, Chicago would be some sort of utopia.

	▲	wpietri 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Chicago is pretty great, bub. This year I opened a pinball museum here, so I can testify that it's a fine place to run a business. Some friends just came from the Bay Area for a week and had a lovely time. If only for your mental health, you should step out of your media bubble now and again

▲

leoc 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It also seems pretty reasonable to worry that Oracle isn't banning LLM code contributions to OpenJDK https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/08/03/as-larry-el... ( HN discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49213754 ) purely on quality grounds. If things carry on as at present, and it turns out that indeed it really was legally safe to copy and paste almost any code that came out of an LLM, then that's one thing; but if instead there's a rash of code copyright (and indeed patent) lawsuits a few years from now then the big and middling companies will simply pay each other settlements, while FOSS projects and their small-fry users will likely be in a much worse situation.

▲

iloveoof 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That’s like saying private libraries are bad for freedom to read, or Blockbuster was bad for freedom to view movies