Open Source, AI, and the Need for Shared Stewardship

In the last two decades, open source has become a foundation of the modern web. From content management systems to developer tools and AI frameworks, it powers much of the digital world, including the platforms that shape our societies, economies, and knowledge.

But as the landscape evolves, the open‑source model is being tested in ways we can no longer ignore.

As the President of the TYPO3 Association, a member of the Open Website Alliance, I’ve seen both the strength and the fragility of open-source ecosystems. We depend on collaboration and openness — yet we are navigating a reality where platform monopolies, AI exploitation, and regulatory pressures are reshaping the ground beneath our feet.

It’s time we reframe the discussion, not as a binary between open and closed, but around governance, shared responsibility, and new models for sustainable stewardship.

Open source is facing a multi-dimensional challenge:

• Economic exploitation: Large cloud and AI companies harvest open-source projects, wrap them into profitable services or training data pipelines, and give little or nothing back.
   
• Legal confusion: Regulations like the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) initially misunderstood the role of open-source contributors, nearly placing compliance burdens on non-commercial developers.
   
• Sponsorship fatigue: Many projects depend on underfunded, overworked maintainers, with limited support from the commercial users who rely on their work.
   
• License fragmentation: In response, many developers are turning to source‑available or ethical licenses that try to protect sustainability, but risk fragmenting the open‑source ecosystem and confusing the public.

These are symptoms of a deeper issue: the infrastructure and mindset of open source have not kept pace with how value is created today.

One of the most persistent misunderstandings is the failure to distinguish between:

• Code: the source files made publicly available
   
• Service: the hosting, support, maintenance, and reliability layer
   
• Solution: the fully integrated product experience (user onboarding, updates, documentation, UX, etc.)

Open-source licenses typically govern the code, but the value lies increasingly in the solution, and that’s where many companies extract profit without contributing back. This has accelerated in the AI era, where models, datasets, and APIs are consumed as raw material, not as community assets.

We believe the future of open source must be grounded in shared stewardship — a model where responsibility, decision-making, and value are distributed more equitably. That includes:

Licenses that acknowledge the difference between source code and hosted or AI-powered solutions. This may involve hybrid licenses, time‑delayed open sourcing, or usage‑based tiers — always transparently communicated.

Clear pathways for commercial users to move from passive consumers to active stewards: via governance seats, dedicated funding, roadmap influence, or technical contribution commitments.

Open-source projects must invest in clear, participatory governance, especially as they scale. This means defining roles, responsibilities, and how decisions are made — not just writing code.

We need platforms (financial and technical) that make stewardship easy:

• Revenue sharing infrastructure
   
• Contributor reputation systems
   
• Compliance tooling (for CRA and similar regulations)
   
• Legal clarity on AI/data/model usage

At the Open Website Alliance, we are committed to a vision of the web that is open, fair, and empowering. But that won’t happen by relying on yesterday’s models.

We invite others — developers, regulators, platform operators, and commercial users — to join us in designing new frameworks for shared digital infrastructure. That includes:

• Rethinking what openness means in an AI-driven world
   
• Developing sustainable funding models
   
• And treating open-source maintainers not as volunteers, but as critical infrastructure providers

Open source must adapt, not by abandoning its values, but by reasserting them through smarter structures. Stewardship, not just openness. Partnership, not just permission.

It’s time to recognize that the software powering our world needs the same care and sustainability we demand from our physical infrastructure.

And that means working together — not just in code, but in commitment.

This article is a conversation starter. In future posts, we’ll explore:

• How TYPO3 is evolving its governance and sponsorship model
   
• Examples of hybrid licenses and their trade‑offs
   
• What AI means for open CMS platforms
   
• What “partial stewardship” could look like in practice

Share your perspective by commenting on this article or continue the discussion on talk.typo3.org. Whether you agree, disagree, or want to add nuance, your input helps shape how TYPO3 and the wider open-source ecosystem approach stewardship in practice.