(ir)regular updates from the jagged frontier of ML and openhttps://openml.fyi/en-ushttps://openml.fyi/openish-is-dead-long-live-openish/https://openml.fyi/openish-is-dead-long-live-openish/Open is dead! Open is everywhere! Long live open, long live the *praxis* of open. Which is what I'm going to go do some more of for a while.Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTessaydefining-openpowerhttps://openml.fyi/centaurs-reverse-and-otherwise-2026-01-07/https://openml.fyi/centaurs-reverse-and-otherwise-2026-01-07/If the first wave of LLM criticism is on life-support, what ethical questions do we face now? And how can/should open engage?Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTessayethicslaborpowerhttps://openml.fyi/green-boxes-2025-11-10/https://openml.fyi/green-boxes-2025-11-10/Thinking about actually writing code instead of writing newsletters, as well as a lot of other open+ml news.Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTtoolingcommunityhttps://openml.fyi/en-route-2025-10-09/https://openml.fyi/en-route-2025-10-09/Links on culture, tools, and SAP in a trenchcoat.Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTcommunitytoolingpowerhttps://openml.fyi/back-in-the-saddle-2025-09-24/https://openml.fyi/back-in-the-saddle-2025-09-24/Vocabulary, ethics, and disclosures, and some news and links from The Week That Was in AI + Open.Wed, 24 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTethicscommunitypowerdefining-openhttps://openml.fyi/agent-of-change-three-years-in/https://openml.fyi/agent-of-change-three-years-in/About the next phase of the newsletter—what happens to open source when the LLM is an agent of change?Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTessaycommunitytoolingpowerhttps://openml.fyi/2024-10-10/https://openml.fyi/2024-10-10/In which I both celebrate and mourn the data commons.Thu, 10 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMTessaycommonsgovernancehttps://openml.fyi/no-one-man-should-have-all-this-power-2024-03-10/https://openml.fyi/no-one-man-should-have-all-this-power-2024-03-10/Getting angry about Senator Vance’s call for… open? and some good examples of what smart open could look like.Sat, 09 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMTpowerregulationdefining-openhttps://openml.fyi/2024-02-15/https://openml.fyi/2024-02-15/Highlights from recent news, including a few interesting new true-open models but lots of negative signs from other quarters of the open/AI culture wars.Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMTtoolingregulationdefining-opentransparencyhttps://openml.fyi/2024-01-24/https://openml.fyi/2024-01-24/Responsible licensing and non-consensual pornography; new open-ish Pile coming; and how openml.fyi will evolve in 2024.Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTlicensingethicsopen-datahttps://openml.fyi/2023-12-06/https://openml.fyi/2023-12-06/Many small notes, plus three long-simmering micro-essays—two on OpenAI and Facebook, and one on how the switch from public licenses to 1:1 contracts might impact open.Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMTpowergovernancelicensingdefining-openhttps://openml.fyi/2023-10-29/https://openml.fyi/2023-10-29/Lots of links on the state of regulation, the recent transparency report, and more.Sun, 29 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMTregulationtransparencyhttps://openml.fyi/2023-10-19/https://openml.fyi/2023-10-19/So much news, so little time.Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMTdefining-opentransparencycommunityhttps://openml.fyi/2023-08-20/https://openml.fyi/2023-08-20/Catching up on power, Facebook, and a range of miscellany.Sun, 20 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMTpowerdefining-openhttps://openml.fyi/taking-stock-23/https://openml.fyi/taking-stock-23/I’ve been writing this newsletter for about six months, so I thought it might be a good time to pause the news firehose, and instead review and synthesize what I’ve learned about the potential for open(ish?) machine learning. That took a while — so thanks for your patience, and welcome back!Thu, 15 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMTessaydefining-openeconomicstoolinghttps://openml.fyi/2023-05-02/https://openml.fyi/2023-05-02/Micro-essays on the commons and model copyrightability; new open(ish) tools; and a lot more.Tue, 02 May 2023 00:00:00 GMTcommonscopyright-and-litigationtoolinghttps://openml.fyi/live-from-sweden-2023-04-19/https://openml.fyi/live-from-sweden-2023-04-19/Upcoming public panel moderation; shifting power via foundation models (open or not); public ability to understand via great WaPo visualization; modularity; and more.Wed, 19 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMTpowertransparencytoolinghttps://openml.fyi/2023-03-30/https://openml.fyi/2023-03-30/A busy week: copyrightability, throwbacks to late-90s monopoly concerns, who is a coder anyway, permission culture revisited, artistic typography, and so much more.Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMTcopyright-and-litigationpowercommunityhttps://openml.fyi/2023-03-19/https://openml.fyi/2023-03-19/Two mini-essays on the Open Data Definition and why OpenAI’s non-profit/for-profit split can be legal (but might not be), and many news bytes from a busy week.Sun, 19 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMTopen-datagovernancedefining-openhttps://openml.fyi/2023-03-12/https://openml.fyi/2023-03-12/Focusing on some key themes, via deployment on laptops, government algorithms, a blog post from Anthropic, an intro to foundation models, and more.Sun, 12 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMTtoolingregulationethicspowerhttps://openml.fyi/2023-03-05/https://openml.fyi/2023-03-05/An observation from the Linux Foundation Legal Summit; Apache grapples with ML; adversarial data; memes explained; and muuuch more.Sun, 05 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMTlicensingopen-datalaborgovernancehttps://openml.fyi/2023-02-06/https://openml.fyi/2023-02-06/Long pondering on when the giants of the space might fight for fair use, or compromise; an observation on the state of open data governance; news on attribution; memorization of (some images); and two weeks of miscellany.Mon, 06 Feb 2023 00:00:00 GMTcopyright-and-litigationopen-datagovernanceeconomicshttps://openml.fyi/2023-01-20/https://openml.fyi/2023-01-20/Updates, including data from Hugging Face, new litigation, and thoughts on power.Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTpowercopyright-and-litigationlaborhttps://openml.fyi/2023-and-welcome-new-subscribers/https://openml.fyi/2023-and-welcome-new-subscribers/What I’m *not* doing in 2023 (predicting the future), a few examples of this tech getting simpler and faster, and an extensive discussion of Wikipedia.Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMTcommonseconomicstoolinghttps://openml.fyi/all-through-the-house-2022-12-19/https://openml.fyi/all-through-the-house-2022-12-19/I've been under the weather and busy at work, so things have been sporadic. I look forward to doing this more steadily in the new year. The rest of the world has not slowed down... Holiday ML poetry Every child there’s been From Aaron to Zeta We can build an AI Because we have the data Read the whole delightful thing, from Casey Fiesler. Top-down 'innovation' This preliminary report on data licensing for AI from the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence is, at some level, a prettyMon, 19 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMTtoolinglabordefining-openhttps://openml.fyi/no-chats-2022-12-05/https://openml.fyi/no-chats-2022-12-05/Avoiding ChatGPT; updates on economics (trends going in good directions), law (it’s messy), explainability (nothing good).Tue, 06 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMTeconomicslicensingtransparencyhttps://openml.fyi/transparency-and-other-rules-2022-11-21/https://openml.fyi/transparency-and-other-rules-2022-11-21/RAIL adoption; observations on “release early, release often” in ML; and a micro-essay on transparency.Tue, 22 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMTlicensingtransparencyregulationhttps://openml.fyi/busy-weeks-2022-11-14/https://openml.fyi/busy-weeks-2022-11-14/The newsletter has been quiet, but the world has not. Some thoughts after a couple of very busy weeks.Mon, 14 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMTcommunityhttps://openml.fyi/need-ml-to-generate-halloween-puns-2022-10-28/https://openml.fyi/need-ml-to-generate-halloween-puns-2022-10-28/No big meta-themes this week. Enjoy Halloween :)Fri, 28 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTdefining-opengovernanceethicshttps://openml.fyi/2022-10-22/https://openml.fyi/2022-10-22/Litigation news, model copyright, stable-diffusion 1.5 delayed (and maybe taken down?), transparency, auditability, and a few events.Sun, 23 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTcopyright-and-litigationtransparencytoolingethicshttps://openml.fyi/2022-10-14/https://openml.fyi/2022-10-14/An experiment in re-organizing the newsletter, based on a list of the values, techniques, and joys I value in traditional open.Fri, 14 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTdefining-opengovernancetransparencyhttps://openml.fyi/2022-10-07/https://openml.fyi/2022-10-07/Notes on new government initiatives, how ml is reminding me of late-90s open, open data, and more.Fri, 07 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMTregulationopen-datacopyright-and-litigationhttps://openml.fyi/welcome-2022-09-30/https://openml.fyi/welcome-2022-09-30/Highlights: discussion of proper terminology (key if we’re going to get this right); examples of the network effects of open; the possible end of NO WARRANTY; an interesting academic paper; and some fun/scary demos.Fri, 30 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMTdefining-openlicensingcommunityhttps://openml.fyi/2022-09-23/https://openml.fyi/2022-09-23/My second email to friends on open+ML. Archived here with only light edits.Fri, 23 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMTlicensingcopyright-and-litigationregulationhttps://openml.fyi/links-for-2022-09-18/https://openml.fyi/links-for-2022-09-18/My first email to some friends on this topic; the positive response to this is part of why I decided to start the newsletter.Fri, 23 Sep 2022 00:00:00 GMTlicensingopen-datatooling