The faux-open models mean the models can't be used in competing products. The open code base means enthusiasts and amateurs and other people hack on Meta projects and contribute improvements.
They get free R&D and suppress competition, while looking like they have principles. Yann is clueless about open source principles, or the models would have been Apache or some other comparably open license. It's all ruthless corporate strategy, regardless of the mouth noises coming out of various meta employees.
I'm not arguing about BSD or GPL. I'm saying that the "open source code, proprietary binary blob" pattern Meta is running with is about quashing potential competition, market positioning, and corporate priorities over any tangential beneficial contributions to open source AI.
It's shitty when other companies do it.
It's shitty when Broadcom does it.
It's shitty when Meta does it.
Meta's choice of license doesn't indicate that Yann is clueless about open-source principles. I don't know about Meta specifically, but in most companies choosing the license for open source projects involves working with a lot of different stakeholders. He very easily could have pushed for Apache or MIT and some other interest group within Meta vetoed it.
Given how megacorps spend millions on a whim (Disney with all recent flops) or, when just a single person wants it (Ms Flight Simulator?) - I wouldn't be surprised to be honest...
Financially, they have underperformed significantly over longer period of time (10 years):
For shareholders, this subpar performance has destroyed value. Disney stock has underperformed the stocks
of Disney’s self-selected proxy peers and the broader market over every relevant period during the last
decade and during the tenure of each non-management director. Furthermore, it has underperformed since
Bob Iger was first appointed CEO in 2005 – a period during which he has served as CEO or Executive
Chairman (directing the Company’s creative endeavors in this role) for all but 11 months. Disney shareholders
were once over $200 billion wealthier than they are now
Which is radically different from previous 90 years
Disney has steamrolled Hollywood for the last decade, bringing in by far the biggest global box office revenue in 7 consecutive years out of 8. They have more billion dollar box office movies than every other studio co mbined.
This kind of dominance was unheard of in the history of Hollywood.
Setting box office aside, Disney revenue has tripled since Iger took over and is twice as much as it should be adjusted for inflation.
The idea that the company has underperformed for the last 10 years or that they spend millions "on a whim" is a joke. And using share price as some justification is even more absurd, share price was double what it was today just in 2021.
As a result, the money generated by the industry has seen a
remarkably noticeable drop. The rise of the term “flop buster”
(in response to so many films like Indiana Jones and the
Dial of Destiny underperforming at the box office) seems to
be directly related to mainstream audiences’ wholesale rejection
of the over-messaging they see hijacking entertainment.
addresses your "it's just nature of Box Office" flopping argument
