From Bazaar to Bittensor: The Evolution of Open Source
How TAO is revolutionizing the economics of open source in the age of AI
I've been on an open source binge lately.
I'm curious about the roots and beginnings of this movement.
The internet is the world’s largest open source project. Linux is the second largest, powering most internet infrastructure.
Open source is a way of creating software where the code is freely available for anyone to use, modify, and share. It's like a collaborative project where everyone can contribute, leading to faster improvements and more innovative solutions.
This issue explores the origins of open source, the challenges it faces, and how Bittensor might just be the economic engine it needs to thrive in the age of AI.
When Trust Betrays: My LastPass Lessons
‘Twas a few nights before Christmas three years ago, and I was in the middle of finalizing my festive plans, when the news dropped like a bombshell.
LastPass, my trusted password manager, had been hacked.
But what was even more unsettling was the fact that they had known about the breach for months and only admitted it (without really apologizing) a few days before the holidays.
It felt like a betrayal, and it almost ruined my holidays.
I spent a frantic week changing passwords, researching new password managers, and migrating my sensitive data.
It turned out that, aside from the breach, they had horrible security practices that only came to light because of the breach and, for most users, were not fit for purpose or managing their sensitive data.
Do you know what let them get away with it for so long?
Their product is closed source.
They rely on the fact that no one knows their code to ensure it is safe, but the problem is as soon as someone gets the code all defenses have been broken.
So, after some research I ended up going for the open source alternative.
Bitwarden had stellar security practices and regularly highlights being open source as their competitive advantage: strengthening their resilience through community collaboration.
They have worked out great for me and I will be a happy customer of theirs as long as they stay trustworthy and open source.
By showing everyone your code, you have to make it so secure that even if everyone knows your code it is still secure. Other people can also contribute to the project and thus more people will find flaws in the code faster than if only the original developer themselves worked on it.
In short, its like a recipe that everyone can see, use, and even change to make it better. Instead of keeping it a secret, people share it so everyone can help improve it together.
Like when my wife takes over my curdling scrambled eggs in the morning and transforms it with a dash of olive oil, toast and bacon on the side. Delicious!
The Public Good Problem
The open source movement was popularized in the 1990s by individuals like Eric Raymond, and I have been reading through his paper “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” this week.
He supposes that innovation flourishes when anyone can join, iterate, and peer review (“bazaar”), instead of a sealed, centrally managed “cathedral.”
Open source is the bazaar because parallel peer review exposes bugs, lets users become co-developers, and accelerates evolutionary pressure on ideas.
The problem is that open source excels by rapid, transparent improvement but lacks direct economic incentives.
In other words, everyone benefits, but who pays?
In Issue 7, I addressed critics who question whether Bittensor can compete with big tech. But what if the real question isn't competition - it's sustainability?
Centralized AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have massive funding but control everything (the "cathedral"). The Open source AI "bazaar" has the community but lacks the economic engine to thrive.
While Raymond's insights were ground breaking, he operated in a time when the costs of software development were relatively low.
In the new age of AI supremacy, reputation alone does not pay a $1 million cloud bill or keep GPUs powered.
Bittensor's Economic Innovation
The fundamental problem is this: AI development is expensive, and open source projects struggle to cover costs while remaining truly open.
Bittensor's native token TAO is the economic plumbing for open source AI that can connect usage to rewards.
It creates a self-sustaining cycle:
Users pay for AI services
Payments go to miners providing the best responses
Miners reinvest in better hardware
Network quality improves
More users join
This is the economic engine that previous open source movements lacked. It's not charity- it's a market mechanism where value flows to those who create it.
Eric Raymond's Vision and Bittensor
Eric Raymond's work on open source software maps very well onto Bittensor's design:
Bittensor embodies the "bazaar" perfectly with its thousands of independent subnets, each contributing unique models and datasets. There's no central authority dictating what gets built or how.
Raymond emphasized that transparency and peer review create security and reliability. In Bittensor, validators continuously query models and rank their usefulness and integrity, ensuring the network maintains high standards of quality and security.
Another key aspect of Raymond's vision was the idea of "release early, release often." Bittensor allows models to update weights with every block, creating an ecosystem where improvements are continuous and incremental.
Developers contribute because the code solves their personal problems. In Bittensor, anyone can deploy the model they need, and if others find it useful, TAO tokens flow in as a reward.
Raymond's open source movement was driven by reputation. Bittensor maintains this culture but reinforces it with automatic TAO payments, turning it into a sustainable model without excluding newcomers.
Why This Matters
They key point is that it isn't really about about beating big tech head on with their resources.
Developers choose Linux as an operating system for control, not because it’s cheaper or better.
It's about creating a sustainable ecosystem where thousands of small contributors can collectively outperform a few centralized giants.
And who doesn't love supporting the underdog, right?
Open source has given us the internet as we know it. But AI is different - the costs of development are orders of magnitude higher. Without an economic model, open source AI will remain a toy while corporations control the future.
Bittensor's innovation isn't just technical - it's economic. It provides the missing piece that could make open source AI truly sustainable, rather than dependent on corporate goodwill or philanthropy.
Next steps
I am constantly assessing where I see myself in this new economic model for open source AI.
As I continue to explore Bittensor, I'm excited about the potential it holds for the future of open source AI.
My plan is to dive deeper into the technical aspects, particularly focusing on how I can contribute to the network as my skills develop- which is much slower than I would like but I will continue to progress every week.
I'm also interested in understanding how Bittensor's economic model can be applied to other open source projects beyond AI. The principles of decentralized value capture and sustainable funding could revolutionize how we support and develop open source software across the board.
And lastly, I'm very eager to engage more with the community, both to learn from others and to share my own experiences and insights.
Let me know how this issue went down.
Also, if you're new to Bittensor and want to understand how to get started, check out Issue 6's funnel framework. If you're curious about the technical side, revisit Issue 2's whitepaper breakdown.
Until next week.
Cheers,
Brian