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OpenAI is 501c3, should they also be required to release everything?

by what 19d ago

alightsoul 19d ago
Yes
gbriel 19d ago
Non profit doesn't necessitate open sourcing their whole product. If you don't like that, don't donate. As long as they are transparent about their decisions that is the only obligation they have.
- akoboldfrying 19d ago
  Perhaps it shouldn't necessitate it, but I can't think of a good reason why not. If it were expensive to release it, that would be a reason. But it costs roughly zero dollars to create a public repo on GitHub and a cron job to push to it once a day. Making the system public potentially increases the likelihood of a hack, which would be bad for Signal users. But relying on this argument to keep the source secret is, I think, a confession that your security is below par. Or to put it the other way round: A secure software system remains secure even if its source code is public, so making your source public is a strong signal that you are confident in your security measures. Security isn't something I expect all non-profits to focus on, but I think it would be telling for Signal to hide behind this reason. What other reasons are there?
  - Jolter 19d ago
    How about they: 1. Don’t want hack competitors launching products using their code 2. Don’t want the resulting fracture in the community If I were Signal I wouldn’t want either of those.
    - akoboldfrying 19d ago
      1. A for-profit company rationally doesn't want competitors launching products using their code. Why would a non-profit care at all? 2. An app like Signal depends completely on network effects, so there's even less motivation for a community-fragmenting fork than in most OSS cases, where you'll notice that forks are already rare. There would have to be something very weird or contentious happening with the original codebase for people to want to fork it -- otherwise it's in no one's interests.
- purpleidea 19d ago
  > Non profit doesn't necessitate open sourcing their whole product. If you don't like that, don't donate. As long as they are transparent about their decisions that is the only obligation they have. Actually you're mistaken. Under the 501(c)(3) tax code rules, they are required to act in the public good. Nobody has sued them to enforce this though, but I'd at least like them to acknowledge the game they're playing by ghosting us all on this.
  - TFNA 19d ago
    American 501c3 law is extremely lax compared to analogous structures in the EU. A number of 501c3s are run as sinecures where a board (self-selecting, so no input from the membership) just hires its friends for well-paid positions that involve little work. Because the law is so lax and permissive, making a case that a given org is not acting in the public good is extremely rare and uphill.
NooneAtAll3 19d ago
"open" is literally in the name, so yes
- Grombobulous 19d ago
  Apple should make their products edible as well.
  - mertenvg 19d ago
    Pretty sure that was Blackberry's downfall
  - monocasa 19d ago
    'Apple' was a metaphor to Newton. 'Open'AI was meant as a promise; one that they've since broke both to some of their founders as well to the general populace. Reminding people of that broken promise doesn't seem that wild.
    - latexr 19d ago
      > 'Apple' was a metaphor to Newton “Apple” was a non-intimidating name that would appear early in the phone book. It had nothing to do with Newton, that logo came after the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc. > According to Wozniak, Jobs proposed the name “Apple Computer” when he had just come back from Robert Friedland's All-One Farm in Oregon. Jobs told Walter Isaacson that he was "on one of my fruitarian diets," when he conceived of the name and thought "it sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating ... plus, it would get us ahead of Atari in the phone book."
      - monocasa 19d ago
        Either way, it wasn't intended to be a promise to the public to be held to the same way as OpenAI's name was.
        19d ago
vlovich123 19d ago
OpenAI is a 501c4 not a 501c3. Also the structure is much more complicated for OpenAI. Nevertheless the point stands - I don’t see what relationship company organizational mission has with their technical responsibilities. Indeed, if the open sourced everything, standing up a clone would be easier which creates funding risk due to a race to the bottom of people who didn’t invest into the R&D investing very little additional to compete.
- throwaway2037 19d ago
  > OpenAI is a 501c4 not a 501c3 This is incorrect. OpenAI is actually registered as a 501(c)(3) public charity, not a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. (Source: Bloomberg Law) > Also the structure is much more complicated for OpenAI. However, this is correct. Their corporate structure is very complex. Here is a screenshot from OpenAI's corporate structure explanation page (now taken down): https://images.axios.com/fbMDxci4KDAoYxM_v61sPi9jSVs=/0x0:1920x1080/1920x1080/2023/11/18/1700315854498.png?w=3840 https://images.axios.com/fbMDxci4KDAoYxM_v61sPi9jSVs=/0x0:19...
zx8080 19d ago
Is it a joke to consider openai as non-profit corporation?

OpenAI is 501c3, should they also be required to release everything?

by what 19d ago

OpenAI is 501c3, should they also be required to release everything?

alightsoul 19d ago

Yes

gbriel 19d ago

Non profit doesn't necessitate open sourcing their whole product. If you don't like that, don't donate. As long as they are transparent about their decisions that is the only obligation they have.

akoboldfrying 19d ago
Perhaps it shouldn't necessitate it, but I can't think of a good reason why not. If it were expensive to release it, that would be a reason. But it costs roughly zero dollars to create a public repo on GitHub and a cron job to push to it once a day. Making the system public potentially increases the likelihood of a hack, which would be bad for Signal users. But relying on this argument to keep the source secret is, I think, a confession that your security is below par. Or to put it the other way round: A secure software system remains secure even if its source code is public, so making your source public is a strong signal that you are confident in your security measures. Security isn't something I expect all non-profits to focus on, but I think it would be telling for Signal to hide behind this reason. What other reasons are there?
- Jolter 19d ago
  How about they: 1. Don’t want hack competitors launching products using their code 2. Don’t want the resulting fracture in the community If I were Signal I wouldn’t want either of those.
  - akoboldfrying 19d ago
    1. A for-profit company rationally doesn't want competitors launching products using their code. Why would a non-profit care at all? 2. An app like Signal depends completely on network effects, so there's even less motivation for a community-fragmenting fork than in most OSS cases, where you'll notice that forks are already rare. There would have to be something very weird or contentious happening with the original codebase for people to want to fork it -- otherwise it's in no one's interests.
purpleidea 19d ago
> Non profit doesn't necessitate open sourcing their whole product. If you don't like that, don't donate. As long as they are transparent about their decisions that is the only obligation they have. Actually you're mistaken. Under the 501(c)(3) tax code rules, they are required to act in the public good. Nobody has sued them to enforce this though, but I'd at least like them to acknowledge the game they're playing by ghosting us all on this.
- TFNA 19d ago
  American 501c3 law is extremely lax compared to analogous structures in the EU. A number of 501c3s are run as sinecures where a board (self-selecting, so no input from the membership) just hires its friends for well-paid positions that involve little work. Because the law is so lax and permissive, making a case that a given org is not acting in the public good is extremely rare and uphill.

NooneAtAll3 19d ago

"open" is literally in the name, so yes

Grombobulous 19d ago
Apple should make their products edible as well.
- mertenvg 19d ago
  Pretty sure that was Blackberry's downfall
- monocasa 19d ago
  'Apple' was a metaphor to Newton. 'Open'AI was meant as a promise; one that they've since broke both to some of their founders as well to the general populace. Reminding people of that broken promise doesn't seem that wild.
  - latexr 19d ago
    > 'Apple' was a metaphor to Newton “Apple” was a non-intimidating name that would appear early in the phone book. It had nothing to do with Newton, that logo came after the name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc. > According to Wozniak, Jobs proposed the name “Apple Computer” when he had just come back from Robert Friedland's All-One Farm in Oregon. Jobs told Walter Isaacson that he was "on one of my fruitarian diets," when he conceived of the name and thought "it sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating ... plus, it would get us ahead of Atari in the phone book."
    - monocasa 19d ago
      Either way, it wasn't intended to be a promise to the public to be held to the same way as OpenAI's name was.
      - 19d ago

vlovich123 19d ago

OpenAI is a 501c4 not a 501c3. Also the structure is much more complicated for OpenAI. Nevertheless the point stands - I don’t see what relationship company organizational mission has with their technical responsibilities. Indeed, if the open sourced everything, standing up a clone would be easier which creates funding risk due to a race to the bottom of people who didn’t invest into the R&D investing very little additional to compete.

throwaway2037 19d ago
> OpenAI is a 501c4 not a 501c3 This is incorrect. OpenAI is actually registered as a 501(c)(3) public charity, not a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. (Source: Bloomberg Law) > Also the structure is much more complicated for OpenAI. However, this is correct. Their corporate structure is very complex. Here is a screenshot from OpenAI's corporate structure explanation page (now taken down): https://images.axios.com/fbMDxci4KDAoYxM_v61sPi9jSVs=/0x0:1920x1080/1920x1080/2023/11/18/1700315854498.png?w=3840 https://images.axios.com/fbMDxci4KDAoYxM_v61sPi9jSVs=/0x0:19...

zx8080 19d ago

Is it a joke to consider openai as non-profit corporation?