OpenAI’s GPT-OSS Challenges Meta’s Leadership in Open-Weight AI

OpenAI’s GPT-OSS, released on August 5, was never going to grab the spotlight. The company’s release schedule guaranteed that, as it quickly followed GPT-OSS with GPT-5, the company’s largest and best large language model. Yet GPT-OSS is, in many ways, a more notable and surprising model. The two-version model (GPT-OSS-20b and GPT-OSS-120b) is OpenAI’s first open large language model since GPT-2’s launch in 2019 (though many would argue neither are truly open; more on that to come). It’s also released under an Apache 2.0 license, which is among the most permissive licenses in common use. Dustin Carr, co-founder and CTO of the AI start-up Darkviolet.ai, called it a “maximally permissive license,” and said the OpenAI release was a “very positive, very surprising development.” Carr’s company uses open models to power AI tools for educational websites. OpenAI returns to “open weights” with style The Apache 2.0 license that accompanies GPT-OSS imposes no limits on commercial use and, unlike