[HN Gopher] Open washing - why companies pretend to be open source
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       Open washing - why companies pretend to be open source
        
       Author : Brajeshwar
       Score  : 109 points
       Date   : 2024-10-26 15:45 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
        
       | cranberryturkey wrote:
       | heh. i've seen this a lot lately.
        
       | bubblesnort wrote:
       | Open source never had any of the ethics or philosophy that free
       | software has.
       | 
       | Free software > open source.
        
         | trehalose wrote:
         | Do you think, if open source never existed, if there were only
         | free software and non-free software, we wouldn't be arguing
         | about whether AI corporations can truly call their free models
         | free?
        
           | mrweasel wrote:
           | Companies always seemed much more weary of "free software" as
           | compared to open source. Probably because of the ambiguous
           | meaning of free in English, honestly that is one of the
           | reason we have open source as a concept.
           | 
           | Companies like the flexibility in "open source", even
           | companies who release code as GPL rarely talk about "free
           | software", they are open source companies.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | How could we? Free Software makes it clear that when you
           | modify the Free thing and productize it, you have to share
           | the modifications with the public under the same licensing.
           | What's there to argue about? You're either doing that or
           | you're not. If you find a loophole in the text, then the
           | license gets updated, the loophole explicitly closed, and
           | everybody who agrees moves to the new version.
        
             | arccy wrote:
             | based on current license choice of projects, turns out most
             | people don't agree...
        
             | Ekaros wrote:
             | Free is ambiguous term. It might be free in code and price.
             | Or it might be free in price, but closed source. It could
             | be free for me as private person, but not for business.
             | 
             | Is freeware free software? It is rather murky term for me.
        
             | jraph wrote:
             | You are confusing Free Software with copyleft.
             | 
             | Free Software licenses and Open source licenses are
             | essentially the same (apart a few odd examples).
             | 
             | The difference between the free software movement and the
             | open source software movement is essentially philosophical.
        
               | pessimizer wrote:
               | > Free Software licenses and Open source licenses are
               | essentially the same (apart a few odd examples).
               | 
               | Apart from every example of GPL software, which can't be
               | used under the permissive terms of Open Source. The last
               | person I replied to about this used the word
               | "essentially" here, also. Is there a common source slogan
               | for this belief?
               | 
               | Also, somebody should tell all of the people who keep
               | rewriting GPL stuff in order to have an MIT version.
        
             | ensignavenger wrote:
             | Non-copyleft licenses can also qualify as Free Software
             | under the FSF definition.
        
               | pessimizer wrote:
               | This is a technicality. Non-copyleft licenses can qualify
               | as Free Software because they can be easily relicensed
               | into Free Software (as well as into proprietary
               | software.)
        
         | mistrial9 wrote:
         | in English, the word "free" has not served well.. suggested
         | alternative "libre" ... oh, except LOSS does not sound great!
         | seems challenging right now.. "free" has failed IMHO .. it is
         | literally mocked by finance people no? every adult in the US
         | and elsewhere must pay bills.. "free" is failing as a label
        
           | homebrewer wrote:
           | Probably should have called it "freedom software" like
           | "freedom fighter" or "freedom units" (as opposed to metric
           | units).
        
             | bubblesnort wrote:
             | It's not too late for that.
        
             | Ringz wrote:
             | Don't forget ,,Freedom Fries".
        
             | anthk wrote:
             | Fair software.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | Free Software has been wildly and unimaginably successful,
           | and undergirds the world economy.
        
             | mistrial9 wrote:
             | certainly agree (to clarify)
        
       | martin-t wrote:
       | The second goal is muddying the waters and making people not
       | care.
       | 
       | Say you're deciding between two programs (or AI models)[0], you
       | prefer an open source one, a colleague prefers one that just
       | pretends to be open. You say your choice is preferable because
       | it's open, he says the same about his choice. Then you say the
       | dreaded "well, actually" and either you sound like a
       | fundamentalist or an asshole.
       | 
       | [0]: None of those are truly open source because they're all
       | trained on stolen data. And see? Now I sound like a
       | fundamentalist.
        
         | Spivak wrote:
         | I'm not sure why training on stolen data would disqualify them
         | if said data was available or at minimum accurately specified
         | what it was.
        
           | youoy wrote:
           | If (stolen) data is available to download ok, that would be
           | the accurate definition of open AI model. But "accurately
           | specified" is not because you would need to trust that the
           | person specifying it is actually honestly doing it. And I
           | think we all know what happens to all that honesty when
           | economic interests are in place.
        
           | martin-t wrote:
           | The data is bound by licenses which affect how the resulting
           | model can be used. I release most of my public code under
           | AGPL so that, for most intents and purposes, anybody using it
           | has to also make their code public and benefit society at
           | large.
           | 
           | Now, with LLMs, anybody can launder my code and use it to
           | build proprietary software for his own benefit without giving
           | anything back. That is a violation of the spirit of AGPL and
           | hopefully the law too.
        
           | Brian_K_White wrote:
           | Available doesn't excuse anything. I don't know why people
           | say it like it matters.
           | 
           | When CBS lets you watch a show on their web site, even for
           | free and anonymously, they still own the show and did not
           | grant you any right to re-distribute or re-use it.
           | 
           | What AIs do is also not fair use, because that isn't just
           | about the size of a quote but about usage. A discussion is
           | fair use, excerpting simply to pluck a cherry and present it
           | as your own is not.
        
         | myworkinisgood wrote:
         | Great point!
        
       | Sytten wrote:
       | Direct consequence IMO of our failure to popularize good licenses
       | in another concept like fair source that sits in-between open
       | source and closed source. My small non-saas bootstrap company
       | could not survive if it was OSS, but maybe fair source.
        
       | rietta wrote:
       | I attended the referenced talk by Dan Lorenc in Alpharetta this
       | week. It was very interesting. He hammered on how many licenses
       | flunk the OSI test despite claiming to be open source.
        
       | nmstoker wrote:
       | See also: "AI Washing".
       | 
       | Externally done to give a kick to sales efforts.
       | 
       | And internally done in an attempt to get someone with AI
       | resources to build blatantly non-AI functions by sticking then
       | onto something with no or very little genuine AI angle.
        
         | BerislavLopac wrote:
         | To be fair, any products that rely on "AI" in naming or
         | advertising is "washed" in some way -- AI is simply a marketing
         | term, not a technical one. Especially considering that it
         | covers so many different (albeit related) things -- LLMs, image
         | generation, computer vision, machine learning etc -- that it
         | became completely void of any useful meaning.
        
           | marcosdumay wrote:
           | AI is pretty much a technical term.
           | 
           | It's just a very wide category that is basically meaningless
           | nowadays because it applies to everything.
           | 
           | Marketers are even restrained in using it, because applying
           | it everywhere it could go would sound insane and cringe. But
           | it is a technical term, that technically applies to all those
           | things people put it on.
        
       | an_d_rew wrote:
       | I have worked at multiple companies that vilified open source
       | anything, while building their entire businesses on Linux, Java,
       | Debian, and thousands of other "OSI Approved" software.
       | 
       | It's because, in my experience, the majority of businesses want
       | to take but do not want to feel any obligation to give back or
       | support.
        
         | Aeolun wrote:
         | Most businesses are started to earn money. Using free stuff
         | while not giving anything away seems perfectly in line with
         | those goals.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | Which was the entire purpose of Open Source, from conception,
           | and the only way it is distinct from other licenses. Open
           | Source is like Free Software, except you can use it without
           | giving anything away.
        
             | dragonwriter wrote:
             | > Open Source is like Free Software, except you can use it
             | without giving anything away.
             | 
             | No, Open Source and Free Software are two names for
             | essentially the same thing. The Free Software Foundation
             | has a preference for licenses which go beyond its own Free
             | Software Definition [0] and which are also "Copyleft" [1],
             | but does not define Free Software in a way which requires
             | that it also be Copyleft.
             | 
             | [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html [1]
             | https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html
        
               | pessimizer wrote:
               | > No, Open Source and Free Software are two names for
               | essentially the same thing.
               | 
               | This is not substantially true, which is why I assume
               | you've added "essentially" in here. Open Source is Free
               | Software, because anybody can take it and make it
               | anything they want as long as they comply with the
               | minimal license terms. Open Source can be proprietary,
               | too, if somebody takes it, complies with the minimal
               | license terms, and makes it proprietary.
        
               | dragonwriter wrote:
               | > This is not substantially true, which is why I assume
               | you've added "essentially" in here.
               | 
               | No, it is. The OSI Open Source definition and the FSF
               | Free Software definition are framed differently but
               | require substantially the same things, and for virtually
               | every license on which both have expressed an opinion,
               | they have cone to the same conclusion as to whether it
               | meets each organization's requirements.
               | 
               | Free Software does _not_ require a license that prevents
               | proprietary re-licensing, that is an additional separate
               | concern _beyond_ the Free Software definition (Copyleft);
               | the FSF generally _prefers_ copyleft licenses, but
               | recognizes non-copyleft licenses as Free Software
               | licenses.
               | 
               | You seem to under the mistaken impression that copyleft
               | is a requirement to meet the Free Software definition,
               | but that has never been the case.
        
           | LtWorf wrote:
           | > Most businesses are started to earn money.
           | 
           | I thought tech startups were started to con people into
           | thinking they might earn money.
        
       | rvnx wrote:
       | At the same time Facebook is doing some of the best efforts for
       | open-AI, so it's a bit hard to blame them. They are not perfect
       | but they still spent and shared the most important artifact that
       | was created out of dozens of millions of USD spent (or even
       | more), though not the dataset, but it is really a major advance
       | forward.
        
       | mirekrusin wrote:
       | True, this needs clarification that currently doesn't exist for
       | large models where training costs heavy millions and binary
       | artifact is both precious and malleable - unlike ordinary
       | compilation.
       | 
       | Regardless if - once OSI establishes their definition(s) - Meta
       | will choose path of adherence or not, they still deserve a
       | paragraph of praise for what they're doing.
       | 
       | As a side note OSI should also recognize that in the era of giant
       | cloud providers protection from predatory market participants is
       | also a thing and should exist as clear licensing option. Mongo,
       | Elastic and Redis drama could be avoided in the future if there
       | was a clear option to protect author side sustainability without
       | affecting open source spirit for end users.
       | 
       | ps. I also believe that "Open <something>" should be protected
       | phrase similar to how "Police", "Federal", "Government" or
       | "Organic" is protected to not mislead the public so we don't have
       | things like "OpenAI" nonsense.
        
       | meehai wrote:
       | I think Open Weights is a better name for AI models that don't
       | share the reproducible training scripts and data.
        
       | stonethrowaway wrote:
       | I've commented on these moves and jukes a few months ago. In the
       | spirit of not reposting, the original is here:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41090142
        
       | teddyh wrote:
       | Cue the several weasels who regularly turn up, arguing that "Open
       | Source" can mean whatever they say it means, since they don't
       | accept the OSI definition.
        
         | ffsm8 wrote:
         | I get were you're coming from, but there is truth to that -
         | especially in english.
         | 
         | As a random example, when is the last time you heard the term
         | "racism" in the context of someone actually discriminating a
         | person according to their race for example? I can't even
         | remember the last time that happened, it's always some form of
         | perceived discrimination, but the discriminator is usually
         | nationality, cultural etc - never actually the _race_. And that
         | 's with the term racism actually including the word _race_
         | 
         | There are countless examples like that because the words
         | ultimately mean what the population in general thinks they mean
         | vs what it initially meant.
         | 
         | It's admittedly frustrating if you're aware of the original
         | definition and people just randomly redefine the meaning
         | however. I've experienced that quiet a few times at this point
        
           | teddyh wrote:
           | It's different when it's a regular word, used for ages.
           | However, the term "Open Source" (as applied to software) was
           | _created_ by the OSI to explicitly mean exactly the OSI
           | definition, no more, no less. The OSI definition was based on
           | the Debian Free Software Guidelines, which Debian had to
           | write because, IIRC, at the time not even the FSF had a
           | strict definition of what constituted free software, and
           | Debian needed some lines to be drawn in order to know what
           | they did and did not want to distribute on Debian CD:s.
           | Claiming something is "Open Source" but not OSI-approved is
           | like claiming something is "legal" just because you
           | personally think it's acceptable, even when the actual law
           | does not agree. Some terms come with strict definitions.
        
             | evanelias wrote:
             | > the term "Open Source" (as applied to software) was
             | _created_ by the OSI
             | 
             | This is historical revisionism, and it's especially
             | terrible that you'd call people "weasels" for correcting
             | it. The term "open source" (as applied to software) was in-
             | use prior to the existence of the OSI, and that's
             | explicitly why the OSI wasn't able to obtain a trademark on
             | the term. The term meant something roughly equivalent to
             | how we use "source available" today.
             | 
             | Read https://dieter.plaetinck.be/posts/open-source-
             | undefined-part... for a really good deep-dive into the
             | prior usage of the term.
        
               | teddyh wrote:
               | Even if we would assume that everything you say is true,
               | does this make it reasonable to claim, _today_ , that we
               | can call something "Open Source" if it isn't OSI-
               | approved? No, I would say that, _today_ , "Open Source"
               | is what OSI says it is. Only weasels try to claim
               | otherwise; i.e. the only people I see doing it are
               | weasels who are trying to defend the indefensible by
               | arguing the definition of words.
        
               | evanelias wrote:
               | > Even if we would assume that everything you say is true
               | 
               | It's not my blog post, so you don't have to take my word
               | for it. But if you disagree with that post author's
               | findings, perhaps you could indicate what you disagree
               | with. The post extensively links citations/sources.
               | 
               | > does this make it reasonable to claim, today, that we
               | can call something "Open Source" if it isn't OSI-
               | approved?
               | 
               | OSI isn't the boss of me, and I see no reason to let them
               | dictate the meaning of terminology that they didn't
               | invent and don't hold a trademark for. The two main
               | founders of OSI also haven't been involved with it for
               | quite some time, and besides, one of them regularly makes
               | politically-charged comments that I find repulsive. Why
               | exactly are we putting this random small non-profit on a
               | pedestal?
               | 
               | Personally, I stick to "source available" when referring
               | to non-OSI licenses, but that's strictly to avoid getting
               | shouted at by people who inexplicably treat the OSD like
               | a holy law from the almighty. I think the industry would
               | be a lot healthier if we avoided these extreme views.
               | 
               | > Only weasels try to claim otherwise; i.e. the only
               | people I see doing it are weasels who are trying to
               | defend the indefensible by arguing the definition of
               | words.
               | 
               | It sure sounds like you think anyone who disagrees with
               | your point of view is a weasel, even if they have a well-
               | researched reason for the disagreement!
        
           | JambalayaJimbo wrote:
           | "Race" is itself a vague and almost meaningless term.
        
             | ffsm8 wrote:
             | In today's world: definitely!
             | 
             | There can be less genetic differences between people from
             | (for example) Asia and Africa vs actual family members.
             | 
             | But feel like the intent of the word was very much not
             | vague. It was initially just about the optical differences
             | between people that were born on different continents -
             | which are/were very easy to discern ~150 yrs ago when it
             | extremely rare for "interracial" offspring.
             | 
             | But that's mostly down to people being people and not
             | caring about these differences at large. Give it a few
             | hundred years and these physical differences such as skin
             | color, average body sizes etc will have gone away, too. At
             | least I think they will.
             | 
             | So I feel that this is a great example of another word
             | that's become so charged with political meaning that the
             | origins meaning has been lost or at least changed along the
             | way. And it continues to lose it with every kid that has
             | parents of varying origin
        
       | kvemkon wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       | OSI readies controversial open-source AI definition (26.10.2024)
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41951421
        
       | gradientsrneat wrote:
       | Article commenter points out that Meta is a funder of the OSI.
       | We'll see if that affects how the OSI defines "open" AI models.
       | 
       | I find it funny how OpenAI was only indirectly mentioned. Still,
       | I'm glad that this columnist is taking a principled stance by
       | arguing aginst one of the more borderline cases.
        
       | tzs wrote:
       | > The Open Source Initiative (OSI) spells it out in the Open
       | Source Definition, and Llama 3's license - with clauses on
       | litigation and branding - flunks it on several grounds.
       | 
       | Anyone know specifically what he is talking about here?
       | 
       | The only things I'm seeing that I would consider to be clauses on
       | litigation are one that terminates your license if you sue them
       | claiming Llama 3 or its output violates your IP, and the have a
       | choice of venue and choice of forum clause.
       | 
       | Several OSI approved licenses have "terminate on patent suit"
       | clauses. Llama 3 is termination on IP suit rather than just on
       | patent suit but I don't see anything in the OSD where that would
       | make a difference.
       | 
       | There's stuff about trademarks, which I assume are the branding
       | clauses he mentions. But I don't see anything obvious on the OSD
       | that such clauses violate.
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | But they said "several grounds" in the article. Isn't that
         | enough? Why would you expect them to explain exactly where and
         | how? A license is just a vibe anyway, it's the spirit that's
         | important.
        
           | LtWorf wrote:
           | The article isn't a dissertation on that topic, you can check
           | more by yourself if you're interested.
        
             | tzs wrote:
             | I _did_ check for myself. And failed to find anything in
             | the clauses on litigation or branding that obviously
             | violated anything in OSI 's Open Software Definition (OSD).
             | 
             | Hence, the question.
             | 
             | Simonw's response points out some unusual clauses, and at
             | least one of them looks like it might go against one of the
             | requirements in the OSD but it is not a litigation or
             | branding clause and the article specifically called out the
             | litigation and branding clauses.
        
         | simonw wrote:
         | The Llama 3 license has all sorts of hokey extra clauses in it:
         | 
         | From https://www.llama.com/llama3/license/
         | 
         | > If, on the Meta Llama 3 version release date, the monthly
         | active users of the products or services made available by or
         | for Licensee, or Licensee's affiliates, is greater than 700
         | million monthly active users in the preceding calendar month,
         | you must request a license from Meta, which Meta may grant to
         | you in its sole discretion, and you are not authorized to
         | exercise any of the rights under this Agreement unless or until
         | Meta otherwise expressly grants you such rights.
         | 
         | This seems harmless... until you ask what happens if you start
         | a startup on top of Llama 3, do really well and later try to
         | get acquired by one of the companies that had more than 700m
         | active users on that date (Apple, Microsoft, Google etc)
         | 
         | > You will not use the Llama Materials or any output or results
         | of the Llama Materials to improve any other large language
         | model (excluding Meta Llama 3 or derivative works thereof).
         | 
         | That's a pretty huge restriction on ways you can use the
         | models. The language "to improve any other large language
         | model" is also incredibly vague.
         | 
         | > (B) prominently display "Built with Meta Llama 3" on a
         | related website, user interface, blogpost, about page, or
         | product documentation. If you use the Llama Materials to
         | create, train, fine tune, or otherwise improve an AI model,
         | which is distributed or made available, you shall also include
         | "Llama 3" at the beginning of any such AI model name.
         | 
         | I love this one, it means that if you fine-tune a model for
         | erotic furry fan fiction you HAVE to call it "Llama 3 Erotic
         | Furry Fan Fiction Writer" or similar.
        
       | lordofgibbons wrote:
       | > The pair found that while a handful of lesser-known LLMs, such
       | as AllenAI's OLMo and BigScience Workshop + HuggingFace with
       | BloomZ could be considered open, most are not.
       | 
       | It's absolutely wild to think the deranged BigScience RAIL
       | license, under which the Bloom LLM was released, is open in any
       | way shape or form. It has more user-harming restrictions than
       | basically any other LLM license out there.
        
       | simonw wrote:
       | "Would it surprise you to know that according to the study, the
       | big-name ones from Google, Meta, and Microsoft aren't? I didn't
       | think so."
       | 
       | Microsoft has a decent LLM that I'd consider to be "open source":
       | Phi-3.5, under the MIT license:
       | https://huggingface.co/microsoft/Phi-3.5-vision-instruct
        
         | mistrial9 wrote:
         | https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/ai-azure-ai-services-...
        
       | neilv wrote:
       | Open source was always a corporate-friendly compromise, but
       | seemed like _some_ of the people involved had a lot of integrity.
       | 
       | What we need is those open source people with integrity to put
       | the smack down on those willfully abusing and destroying the
       | terms.
       | 
       | If you can't do it with
       | trademarks/certifications/licensing/memberships/etc., do it with
       | mainstream journalism. Like might be being done here, except _The
       | Register_ has long had rare insider knowledge, and is relatively
       | niche. You need to get the message out to everyone who 's not
       | already in the know, including lawmakers.
       | 
       | (Incidentally, the FSF also has integrity, but, besides prompting
       | open source by being zero-compromise -- which is fine in their
       | case -- they have an _additional_ challenge of seeming to be
       | clinically incapable of advocacy in situations that _are_
       | aligned.)
        
         | pyeri wrote:
         | That compromise thing was like eons ago when folks like Bruce
         | Perens and ESR tried to tow that fine line between commercial
         | open source and free libre paradigms and were successful to a
         | great degree.
         | 
         | But today, such nuance doesn't exist. The commercial ones have
         | gone full commercial and making no qualms about it (thus the
         | title of this post).
         | 
         | If this attitude continues, all commercial interests in FOSS
         | will be seen with high scepticism unless they have a proven
         | track record of being a good actor.
        
       | blackeyeblitzar wrote:
       | It's easy. They're draining the phrase "open source" of meaning
       | while gaining by marketing themselves that way. It's fraudulent
       | but also just exploitative.
        
       | scirob wrote:
       | an agregious example is thirdweb who technically has the product
       | open sourced but is written to not work without an API key and
       | phone home to SAAS to check your API call limit..
       | 
       | https://github.com/thirdweb-dev/engine?tab=readme-ov-file
       | https://portal.thirdweb.com/engine/self-host
       | 
       | It makes me sad becuase I was working on a getting a team
       | together to build a real opensource and free alternative but once
       | they found thirdweb they all got discouraged thinking that no one
       | will understand why our real open product is diffierent
        
         | josephcsible wrote:
         | If it's open source, can't you just fork it and remove that
         | antifeature?
        
         | LtWorf wrote:
         | What even is this thing?
        
       | ahaucnx wrote:
       | I believe often companies or rather decision makers are afraid of
       | going fully open-source because they invested a lot of money into
       | the product and are afraid some other company uses it, offers it
       | cheaper and ultimately harms the originator.
       | 
       | So even they might believe in open-source they put protections in
       | place that ultimately lock it down and thus make it closed source
       | but trying to keep the impression of being open.
       | 
       | In our journey at AirGradient towards becoming fully open-source
       | hardware (all code and hardware licensed under CC-BY-SA), we had
       | the same concerns but ultimately decided to go full-in and open
       | up everything with an officially approved open-source license.
       | 
       | I believe there are a few important aspects and "protections"
       | that are open-source compatible that help companies protect their
       | investments.
       | 
       | Firstly, requiring Attribution is compatible with open-source and
       | can help companies get a lot of visibility and competitors
       | probably don't want to attribute another company and thus are
       | often not likely to clone.
       | 
       | Secondly, using a share-alike license also makes it unattractive
       | for many other companies using the code.
       | 
       | Lastly, I believe the code itself is often not the valuable part
       | compared to the brand value, employees, reputation, business
       | model, network and implicit knowledge that a company builds up.
       | 
       | It really worked for us to go that way with a true open-source
       | license and I hope many others will do it too.
       | 
       | There are already some easy to understand licenses like CC in
       | place and I do hope that they also create awareness around "open
       | washing".
        
       | mdaniel wrote:
       | I can more readily(?) accept ones which mis-label their
       | announcements of "Open Source!!1 under My Awesome License
       | 1.0beta" than I can rug-pulls. Look, if you wanna use some
       | rights-harming license and just shit on the term "Open Source,"
       | that's bad, but from a certain perspective understandable if the
       | marketing folks don't grok the nuances of Open Source. The world
       | is filled with misguided people, and I can just command-w the
       | window and never use your product
       | 
       | But if you accept contributions from the community for years, and
       | ingrain your product in hundreds of thousands of workflows around
       | the world, and only _then_ decide  "holy shit, salaries cost
       | money, best yank our license" that should be a case of fraud and
       | you should be civilly liable, _in my opinion_
        
       | mlinksva wrote:
       | > the EU still doesn't have a clear definition of open source AI
       | 
       | One can debate "clear" but the the AI Act https://eur-
       | lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj does say in Recitals 102-104
       | (mini open source license definition *highlighted*):
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | (102) Software and data, including models, released under a free
       | and open-source licence that allows them to be openly shared and
       | where users can freely access, use, modify and redistribute them
       | or modified versions thereof, can contribute to research and
       | innovation in the market and can provide significant growth
       | opportunities for the Union economy. General-purpose AI models
       | released under free and open-source licences should be considered
       | to ensure high levels of transparency and openness if their
       | parameters, including the weights, the information on the model
       | architecture, and the information on model usage are made
       | publicly available. *The licence should be considered to be free
       | and open-source also when it allows users to run, copy,
       | distribute, study, change and improve software and data,
       | including models under the condition that the original provider
       | of the model is credited, the identical or comparable terms of
       | distribution are respected.*
       | 
       | (103) Free and open-source AI components covers the software and
       | data, including models and general-purpose AI models, tools,
       | services or processes of an AI system. Free and open-source AI
       | components can be provided through different channels, including
       | their development on open repositories. For the purposes of this
       | Regulation, AI components that are provided against a price or
       | otherwise monetised, including through the provision of technical
       | support or other services, including through a software platform,
       | related to the AI component, or the use of personal data for
       | reasons other than exclusively for improving the security,
       | compatibility or interoperability of the software, with the
       | exception of transactions between microenterprises, should not
       | benefit from the exceptions provided to free and open-source AI
       | components. The fact of making AI components available through
       | open repositories should not, in itself, constitute a
       | monetisation.
       | 
       | (104) The providers of general-purpose AI models that are
       | released under a free and open-source licence, and whose
       | parameters, including the weights, the information on the model
       | architecture, and the information on model usage, are made
       | publicly available should be subject to exceptions as regards the
       | transparency-related requirements imposed on general-purpose AI
       | models, unless they can be considered to present a systemic risk,
       | in which case the circumstance that the model is transparent and
       | accompanied by an open-source license should not be considered to
       | be a sufficient reason to exclude compliance with the obligations
       | under this Regulation. In any case, given that the release of
       | general-purpose AI models under free and open-source licence does
       | not necessarily reveal substantial information on the data set
       | used for the training or fine-tuning of the model and on how
       | compliance of copyright law was thereby ensured, the exception
       | provided for general-purpose AI models from compliance with the
       | transparency-related requirements should not concern the
       | obligation to produce a summary about the content used for model
       | training and the obligation to put in place a policy to comply
       | with Union copyright law, in particular to identify and comply
       | with the reservation of rights pursuant to Article 4(3) of
       | Directive (EU) 2019/790 of the European Parliament and of the
       | Council (40).
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | In the articles open-source is expressly referred to as release
       | under an open-soruce license (see definition in recitals above):
       | 
       | ---
       | 
       | [Article 2: Scope]
       | 
       | 12. This Regulation does not apply to AI systems released under
       | free and open-source licences, unless they are placed on the
       | market or put into service as high-risk AI systems or as an AI
       | system that falls under Article 5 or 50.
       | 
       | [Article 25: Responsibilities along the AI value chain]
       | 
       | 4. The provider of a high-risk AI system and the third party that
       | supplies an AI system, tools, services, components, or processes
       | that are used or integrated in a high-risk AI system shall, by
       | written agreement, specify the necessary information,
       | capabilities, technical access and other assistance based on the
       | generally acknowledged state of the art, in order to enable the
       | provider of the high-risk AI system to fully comply with the
       | obligations set out in this Regulation. This paragraph shall not
       | apply to third parties making accessible to the public tools,
       | services, processes, or components, other than general-purpose AI
       | models, under a free and open-source licence.
       | 
       | [Article 54: Authorised representatives of providers of general-
       | purpose AI models]
       | 
       | 6. The obligation set out in this Article shall not apply to
       | providers of general-purpose AI models that are released under a
       | free and open-source licence that allows for the access, usage,
       | modification, and distribution of the model, and whose
       | parameters, including the weights, the information on the model
       | architecture, and the information on model usage, are made
       | publicly available, unless the general-purpose AI models present
       | systemic risks.
        
       | yieldcrv wrote:
       | "open source" doesn't only mean what the "open source community"
       | has memed it to mean
       | 
       | personally, I think the term should be avoided if its not what
       | the open source community has made a culture around
       | 
       | but I cant say its weasely corporate "open washing", either.
       | because its the open source community that appropriated the term
       | to mean a subset of free, open, commercial use licenses and
       | everything digital thats necessary to replicate the product, not
       | the other way around where corporations are suddenly using some
       | legalese to turn it into a marketing term thats technically okay
        
       | alexashka wrote:
       | They pretend because advertising and marketing is legal.
        
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