PyTorch moves to the Linux Foundation

In 2022 there was a move that, seen from afar, looks like a topic only for engineers: PyTorch, one of the most widely used tools in the world for building artificial intelligence, passed into the hands of the Linux Foundation under an open governance model. Instead of depending on a single company, it came under the care of a community and a neutral foundation. It sounds technical, but behind it there’s a question that does concern any business: who controls the tools your technology is built on?

For a Mexican business, that question is no small matter. Every system you use—your point of sale, your CRM, the software built for you—rests on foundational pieces that someone else maintains. If those pieces are in the hands of a single owner, your continuity depends on their decisions. If they’re on an open, shared foundation, you gain something very valuable: independence. That’s the real headline of this news, and it’s a good excuse to review what foundations your own business is standing on.

What “open governance” means without jargon

Think about the difference between renting a space and owning the land. When a key tool is controlled by a single company, you rent: the rules, the price, and even the existence of the product depend on that company. When that tool moves to an open foundation, the land becomes a condominium with clear rules, where no single party can close the door on you from one day to the next.

Open governance means, in short, that the important decisions are made transparently and among several actors. For you, that translates into three concrete things: more stability, less risk of being trapped with a single vendor, and the peace of mind that the technology will stay alive even if one company changes course.

What matters isn’t just which software you use, but what foundations it’s built on and who decides its future.

Why it matters to your business

It’s easy to think this only applies to the big tech companies, but the effect reaches all the way down to the corner shop digitizing its sales. These are the reasons that do touch your operation:

• Continuity of your operation. Tools with open foundations rarely disappear overnight; there’s a community interested in maintaining them. Your investment isn’t at the mercy of a single company.
• Less vendor dependence. When the foundation is open, changing technology partners doesn’t mean throwing everything out and starting over. You keep your data, processes, and history.
• Healthier long-term costs. You’re not tied to licenses that raise their price with no alternative. You have room to negotiate and real options.
• Available talent. Open and popular technologies are the ones the most people know how to use, so it’s easier to find someone to maintain and improve your system over time.

How it translates into custom software

At Normandia Web we work with this idea every day. When we develop custom software for a business, we deliberately choose open, well-backed foundations, not the fad of the moment or the tool that locks the client in. The goal is for the system to be truly yours: so you can grow it, move it, or audit it without asking anyone’s permission.

That also means decisions are made with reliable information and not out of marketing. Before we build, we check how solid and how alive each piece we’re going to use is, because whether your investment keeps working five years from now—not just next season—depends on it.

Review your business’s foundations

You don’t need to understand foundations or code to make better decisions. With these actionable steps your company already gains clarity:

• Ask what your system is built on. Ask your vendor to explain in plain language what foundational technologies it uses and how stable they are.
• Review your level of dependence. If tomorrow you wanted to change vendors, could you take your data and your system with you? If the answer is no, there’s a risk to address.
• Prioritize what’s open and backed. Given two similar options, choose the one with a broad community and a clear governance foundation.
• Start bounded and measurable. There’s no need to redo everything at once. Digitize a concrete process, measure results, and grow from there with steady steps.

The PyTorch news leaves a clear lesson: the most valuable technology is the one that doesn’t tie you down. If you want to know what foundations your business is standing on and build on foundations that are truly yours, at Normandia Web we can sit down to review it with you and chart that first step together.