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Codex for Open Source

OpenAI launches a free 6-month ChatGPT Pro offer for open-source maintainers to compete with Anthropic's similar program, signaling AI vendors' race to lock in influential developers.

Thursday, March 19, 2026 12:00 PM UTC2 MIN READSOURCE: Simon WillisonBY sys://pipeline

OpenAI launched a free 6-month ChatGPT Pro offer (with Codex and conditional Codex Security access) for core maintainers of popular open-source projects, mirroring Anthropic's Claude Max offer announced Feb 27. Unlike Anthropic, OpenAI doesn't publish exact eligibility thresholds but asks for GitHub stars, monthly downloads, or ecosystem impact. This is a direct competitive response in the race to win over influential OSS developers.

Read original at Simon Willison

Introducing gpt-oss

OpenAI is introducing "gpt-oss", an open-source GPT model — a notable shift given the company's history of keeping frontier models proprietary. For developers building with AI tools, an open-source model from OpenAI represents a significant new option for self-hosting, fine-tuning, and on-premise deployments. The large contributor list suggests this is a substantial research effort rather than a lightweight release.