I published a version of this article on Medium eight years ago. This version is updated with new references and arguments. Over the last few years, I’ve been a part of lots of discussions — across ...

Imagine a world where countries work together like open-source code. This is what happened when Britain and Italy tried to change how they work together. Britain was the “reluctant sheriff” and Italy ...

When you hear the term "open source," it's talking about any publicly accessible design that people are free to change and share as they please. It started with software development, with code that ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I am an MIT Senior Fellow & Lecturer, 5x-founder & VC investing in AI When teams prepare large language models to operate, they ...

Open source has never been about a sprawling community of contributors. Not in the way we’ve imagined it, anyway. Most of the software we all depend on is maintained by a tiny core of people, often ...

Early in my GIS career, I wanted to produce digital maps at home. Of course, I couldn’t use the tools I had access to at work due to licensing and cost restrictions. That limitation pushed me to ...