The Fight for Open Source in California
Today we’re fighting to save open source in California. We need everyone on board, from the independent posters to the largest whales; from curious engineers to established policy teams.
SB 1047 is a law that would crack down on open source and make it much harder to launch an AI startup.
It reads as if it were written to crack down on OpenAI’s competitors, covering not just models with large compute usages, but those with SIMILAR PERFORMANCE. In other words, any model, no matter how cheap, that is able to compete with OpenAI will be subject to this law.
SB 1047 is fast tracked for a vote in the California senate. But we can win.
It is a bill sold on lies. In a related hearing, a staffer for the Senator who introduced the bill testified as a ‘startup founder’ without disclosing his current role at all. In reality, it would be a disaster for startups.
We need a public campaign to shape the message, shape the response, and ultimately shape the law. For too long, builders have let authoritarians and degrowthers lie about their attempts to crack down on us and to make America poorer, slower, and less able to compete with China.
We have the network to educate lawmakers, developers, and activists about the stakes. We have the network to win. It is time to show the power of the organic community defending open source.
Here’s your first step to getting started:
https://x.com/psychosort/status/1784682849523597507
Contact us to keep the ball rolling:
https://www.affuture.org/contact/
Could you link the actual text of the bill? Nothing you said actually tells me what the bill actually does...ok it covers such and such models but does it ban them or just require you file a form saying you made one?
And how does it relate to OSS? I presume it's about what it requires but what is that?
Wonder if OpenAI wrote the text of the bill.