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Alex Williams
Founder at The New Stack
Alex Williams is the co-founder and publisher of The New Stack, an online technology publication he established in 2014 alongside his spouse, Judy Williams. The New Stack focuses on providing insights into the development, deployment, and management of software, catering primarily to software engineers, developers, and operations professionals.13
Before founding The New Stack, Williams had a notable career as a technology journalist, serving as an editor at prominent tech publications such as ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch.34 His work emphasizes the complexities and innovations in the cloud-native ecosystem, where he also engages with the community through events and podcasts.34
Williams is based in Portland, Oregon, and identifies with the pronouns he/him.12 His contributions to technology journalism have made him a recognized figure in the field, often discussing trends and challenges within software development at various industry conferences.13
Highlights
I have a story publishing next week that has helped me learn quite a bit about the open source and AI paradox. It’s a matter that is getting more attention as the camps separate. On one side are the open pragmatists and on the other — the ones who want open source AI to be aspirational and true to its principles. The problem: open source is diminishing in meaning as AI LLM providers call their services open source when they are not. But underlying is a complexity not seen in the open source community since the Open Source Initiative defined open source more than two decades ago.
What we see: a stewardship question that allows for the exploitation of open source while the parties all push their own version of truth.
OSI is working on a definition. But will it have the gravitas and the backing of the community? Right now, it is an open question.
I stood underneath the Brooklyn Bridge today, in a place where infrastructure is so important to the running of New York City.
Looking at that bridge, I thought about infrastructure and all those maintainers out there who are trying their darndest just to keep up with stuff. But really, there should be a lot of commercial providers and public support for the all the different open source technologies that are needed so we can make our world run online and offline.
And isn't that what's going on with open source? We're trying to figure out how to run the infrastructure itself. What's happening in the process? Well, we have a lot of issues with the openwashing of open source.
There is no stewardship in some respects of what open source actually means. Open source AI can be used by Mark Zuckerberg and Meta in any way they wish. Why? Maybe to earn favor with the EU or just use the good will open source has earned in the past 25 to 30 years.
We need to move the conversation. It is not like open source supports small communities any more. The impact is global and it deserves private and public support on a global scale.
