# I argued with the father of open source for 2 years. Now the AI fight is the same, only bigger

> This is a useful history lesson dressed up as an op ed, the 1980s open source versus proprietary software fight did not end with one side annihilated, it ended with a messy equilibrium that most people now take for granted. The smart read here is not whether Siegel is right that closed frontier models will strangle scientific progress, it is that a Two Sigma cofounder felt compelled to write this at all, a sign the open versus closed argument has moved from mailing lists to boardrooms. Watch whether this framing gets picked up by open weight labs as ammunition in their pitch to enterprises and governments.

_Section: [Interesting AI Articles](https://www.wortins.com/articles) · Source: Fortune · Published Saturday, July 4, 2026_

## Wortins' read

This is a useful history lesson dressed up as an op ed, the 1980s open source versus proprietary software fight did not end with one side annihilated, it ended with a messy equilibrium that most people now take for granted. The smart read here is not whether Siegel is right that closed frontier models will strangle scientific progress, it is that a Two Sigma cofounder felt compelled to write this at all, a sign the open versus closed argument has moved from mailing lists to boardrooms. Watch whether this framing gets picked up by open weight labs as ammunition in their pitch to enterprises and governments.

## Source

[Read the full story at Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/07/03/open-source-ai-same-fight-as-software-fight-1980s-david-siegel-two-sigma/)

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_Curated and written by [Wortins](https://www.wortins.com) — The daily AI briefing. Every story links to its original source; the "Wortins read" on each is our own original analysis. [About Wortins & our editorial approach](https://www.wortins.com/about)._