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Open source lets innovators build without fear of lawsuits or licensing costs, letting ideas coded in a dorm room or garage grow into major companies, as when the first version of Facebook was built entirely on open source software.

The free, community-supported nature of open source removes financial and legal barriers to building new things, seeding innovations that range from hobby projects to companies like Meta. ✦ AI generated

Kevin Xu (Interconnected, co-author) · Interconnects · 2026-06-19 · original ↗

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Others blossomed into huge companies, like Meta, where the initial version of Facebook was built entirely on a stack of open source software. Every day, new ideas or solutions are being coded up in a dorm room, garage, or basement, all because open source lets innovators create without fear of a lawsuit or an expensive bill.

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▦ Facebook ▦ Meta

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In practice · 1

Hugging Face has reached $100M annual run-rate revenue while still keeping the platform free and open for 97% of its users.Clement Delangue · Latent Space · conf 60%

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supports → Washington's current wave of AI regulatory activity risks spilling over into regulating or banning open source AI, and that would be a grave mistake.Kevin Xu (Interconnected, co-author) · Interconnects supports → Trying to slow or ban the open model ecosystem is futile, unsafe, and anti-freedom, because it would concentrate AI development among a select few and cut off outsiders' ability to adopt the technology.the author · Interconnects