Why is Claude Code closed source but Codex is substantially open source?
- Why is Claude Code closed source but Codex is substantially open source?
- Claude Code was the breakout success of a new category that it created.
- There was no reason to start being open.[a]
- That would be a cost for no benefit
- Then there was never a time to open it[b] and by the time it would have made sense to do it it was too late.
- Anthropic got locked into the closed position, leaving OpenAi to counter position as open.
- OpenAI has also made it clear you can use Codex and ChatGPT Pro in whatever harness you want.
- Anthropic has, in a high-visibility way, come to exactly the opposite conclusion.
- Doesn't that lock OpenAI into an unsustainable position of subsidy?
- Not necessarily!
- Individual models often come down in cost by multiple orders of magnitude over years.
- OpenAI can commit to this model being allowed to be used with the subsidy in perpetuity.
- Over time that cost will collapse to be negligible.
- But OpenAI still has the ability to not include future expensive models in that policy.
- That gives them the benefit of unambiguously being a more open policy for the subsidy now, and with little downside in the future.