ClueCon Weekly with Jean-Baptiste Kempf [Sn. 15 Ep. 28]: Funding Open Source in the AI Era
Open source runs more of your daily internet than you probably realize, especially video. In this episode of ClueCon Weekly, host Jon Gray sits down with Jean-Baptiste Kemp (open source contributor across major multimedia projects, President of VideoLAN, and CEO of Kyber) for a wide-ranging conversation on open source, AI, and what “open” really means right now.
J.B. breaks down a key distinction: most “open source AI” is actually open weights, not truly open source.
We dig into what it would take for AI to match the freedoms of classic open source, sharing not just model weights, but also training data (or datasets), training scripts, and reproducible methods.
You’ll also hear:
🔹Why projects like VLC / FFmpeg / x264 quietly power huge parts of the modern streaming world
🔹How open source culture has shifted from end-user freedom to developer-focused infrastructure
🔹The growing sustainability problem: more dependency, more workload, and still no solved funding model
🔹Why some open source communities resist AI and why they can’t afford to ignore it
🔹Practical advice on AI-assisted coding: when it’s a game-changer, when it becomes “vibe-coded” risk, and what maintainers should do to protect projects
If you care about open source, build with AI, or depend on OSS (trust us, you do), this episode is a grounded look at where things are headed and what responsibility looks like on both sides.
ClueCon Weekly with Jean-Baptiste Kempf Topic Participants
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