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points by rcr-anti 14 hours ago | 0 comments

It's not open weight, it's weights available as they use a modified MIT license that is not OSI. It's the common "if you're serving it as a business you need a license" difference, for what it's worth.

[–] Taek 14 hours ago

Everyone that I know considers something to be 'open weight' if the weights are available to the public in some form or another.

In other words, I don't think there's anything misleading happening in the title. When most people discover that certain restrictions exist on using the weights, they will neither be surprised nor disappointed, because the main thing that's being advertised - the weights are available for download - is true!

[–] captainmuon 14 hours ago

I work at a university data center and we host open weight models (as usual, this is my private opinion). I would consider open weight something you can take and self-host for free, also commercially and also that you can use for training and research. Anything else is just, I don't know, just "usable for free in certain cases"?

Open source or source available is something else entirely. To consider something source available I would require the actual training data to be available too. That is exceedingly rare.

[–] Dylan16807 10 hours ago

"Some form or another" is too forgiving. You can't use this commercially at all. Toy purposes only.

If it only restricted resale that would be okay in my book to call open weight. But this license is stifling.

[–] 0xbadcafebee 6 hours ago

Of course you can use it for commercial purposes. You just can't serve it as an inference SaaS. https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Large-4-1T-A52B/raw...

[–] mrob 13 hours ago

"Open weight" is obviously intended to be analogous to "open source". The name only exists because people rightly complained about people calling weights "open source" when they were not. As such, the most reasonable interpretation is something that obeys the Open Source Definition as closely as possible, but ignores clause 2 because obeying it is legally impossible when the source code infringes copyright (as is the case with almost all LLMs). If it ignores any of the other clauses, it's instead closer to "source available" software, so the correct analogous name is "weights available".

[–] dcss_gardener 14 hours ago

Where did you get this definition of open weight and who else uses it? The weights are published. Open source is already its own more restrictive category. What would you prefer we call this kind of release?

"Weights available" does not seem to be in wide use and doesn't, to me, communicate anything different than "open weights."

[–] loire280 14 hours ago

"Source available" is already a common term for source code that is provided with a very restrictive license or under regular copyright.

[–] dcss_gardener 14 hours ago

I've also heard it used to describe projects that are open source by anyone's measure but have contribution or project governance requirements like for example sqlite.

"Source available" is definitely in much wider use than "weights available" but it's not that common and it's not used consistently at all in my experience.

Weights are different enough from source code I don't find the metaphor useful or compelling. I don't see any value in trying to apply it to a novel subdomain of software engineering, frankly.

[–] mrob 13 hours ago

>I've also heard it used to describe projects that are open source by anyone's measure but have contribution or project governance requirements like for example sqlite.

Anybody calling SQLite "source available" is mistaken. Are you sure they weren't confusing "source available" with "open core" (Open Source + proprietary add-ons)? SQLite's source code is public domain, which meets the Open Source Definition and is true Open Source. But they also sell proprietary add-ons to fund its development:

https://sqlite.org/prosupport.html

[–] altermetax 13 hours ago

Honestly, I think "source available" is used pretty consistently, and if someone said "weights available" I would immediately understand what they mean.

No one calls SQLite "source available", and if they do, they're doing it more as a protest of their development model than being serious.

[–] jamiejquinn 13 hours ago

A license like GPL is very restrictive, but I wouldn't call it source available. Maybe I'm missing your point?

[–] loire280 10 hours ago

A well known example is Gitlab Enterprise - you can see the source code but (IANAL) you can't use it without paying them and any modifications you make become the property of Gitlab. I remember seeing similar terms around some of the proprietary Confluent Platform components.

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/blob/master/ee/LICENS...

[–] jamiejquinn 10 hours ago

Wow, that is very restrictive.

[–] loire280 9 hours ago

It's better than nothing when you are troubleshooting and suspect it's their bug. I hope the rampant illegal AI scraping doesn't force companies to end the practice and go completely closed-source.

[–] rcr-anti 14 hours ago

I didn't make it up, I'm using OSI's definition. Pretty analogous to why BSL or SSPL aren't "open".

https://opensource.org/ai/open-weights

[–] SquareWheel 13 hours ago

> I'm using OSI's definition

You shouldn't. The term existed in the community before they tried to prescriptively define it. They have no authority over the term.

[–] rat9988 14 hours ago

OSI is not an authority on the topic, not more than anybody. Open Source as a concept predates its existence, and didn't even apply to LLM.

[–] Almondsetat 14 hours ago

Then who is an authority on the topic? Or are you trying to make a common usage argument, in which case you have to somehow demonstrate that's the way people understand it?

[–] pixl97 13 hours ago

>Then who is an authority on the topic?

That's the neat thing. Nobody is. It is a multi-consensus arrangement where you have different parties that accept different definitions.

>in which case you have to somehow demonstrate that's the way people understand it?

Why?

This is a common mistake a lot of people make. "I think X = 1, therefore everyone that is correct thinks X = 1". There could be huge variation in subgroup understanding on what this should be, and as long as there is no overarching legal requirement then you could consider them all correct on matters of opinion.

[–] pessimizer 7 hours ago

"Open Source" as a phrase does not. I have no idea what you mean by "Open Source as a concept," especially 1) because you're capitalizing it, and 2) because you're saying that the concept doesn't mean anything in particular.

It's annoying that people pretend like Open Source was a common phrase before it was invented to subvert Free Software by OSI, and it's shameful that people would tell this lie for the sole purpose of trading on the goodwill that Open Source software has created. Even in the world where people were always talking about "open source" before the OSI, that talk is certainly not the reason that people who are using the term to describe non-OSI approved licenses are using it today. They're intentionally trying to defraud people, and have the nerve to be snotty about it.

[–] hobofan 14 hours ago

It's the same distinction as "open source" vs "source available" (when speaking about source code). It's not that widely in use because few people in the LLM space are diligent enough with IP to make the distinction, but the concept is easily transferable.

[–] simias 14 hours ago

I think the problem with this "open weights" thing is that it doesn't map well at all with "open source".

If you think about it the actual mapping is more like:

- closed weights -> closed-source web service (e.g. gmail)

- open weights -> closed-source but you get the binaries (e.g. Minecraft)

- Actually open model (with training data, training pipeline etc.) -> open source

[–] rcr-anti 14 hours ago

True, they don't own the word open. Words mean what people agree they mean, and insisting on more expansive definitions of open got the ecosystem from restrictive licenses in the llama 2 and 3 days to most noteworthy models being MIT, Apache, or OpenMDW (permissive but specifically for model weights).

[–] w3ll_w3ll_w3ll 14 hours ago

I believe there should be a way to distinguish this type of open-weight model from one that you can find hosted by someone else, such as Chinese models.

[–] stingraycharles 14 hours ago

Isn’t this usually defined by “open” vs “free” ?

I think this is really splitting hairs, they just want to give people the ability to self-host (which is awesome) yet still make money off it for cloud based hosting.

But then again, I also always understood that startups want to prevent AWS from capitalizing on their source code as well and sympathize with Elastic, MongoDB, etc so perhaps I’m an outlier here.

Businesses should be able to release things to the public yet still be able to control who makes money off of it.

[–] mrob 13 hours ago

>Isn’t this usually defined by “open” vs “free” ?

No. In the context of software licensing, "open" vs. "free" is more a question of philosophy than any practical difference. The Free Software Definition and the Open Source Definition agree so closely that I can't think of any license that meets one but not the other. But the Free Software Foundation sees freedom as an end in itself, even if it requires sacrificing quality, while the Open Source Initiative sees freedom as a tool to be used to improve software quality.

[–] pessimizer 7 hours ago

No. Free would mean that any modifications that you distribute would also be under the same license, and you would have to make them available in a usable form. Open means you can do whatever you want with it, as long as you include a copy of the license, the copyright, and possibly the author's name(s).

> Businesses should be able to release things to the public yet still be able to control who makes money off of it.

Nobody's stopping them. People are complaining about the lying. They can do whatever they want with their IP.

[–] hedora 14 hours ago

Many of the Chinese models are not open weight. The larger Qwen models are a good example. I assumed I could use flash next however I wanted to, since it is easy to download and runs on low-wattage desktops, but nope.

[–] btown 14 hours ago

Just because OpenAI ran roughshod over the broader software community's notion of "open" which once heavily implied free-as-in-software-not-beer, doesn't mean we need to continue this pattern.

Many industries had "source available" without the word "open" for decades, and that was a broadly understood term. "Weights available" would be a reasonable analogue.

For clarity, the Mistral model license is here: https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Large-4-1T-A52B/raw...

> 2. If the Licensee or any of its affiliates operates a Model as a Service business, the Licensee must enter into a separate commercial license with Mistral before using the Model or its derivative works for any commercial purpose. The Licensee may contact Mistral, using this form: https://mistral.ai/contact/, to request a commercial license.

> "Model as a Service" means giving a third party access to the Model or its derivative works for inference or post-training by any means (for instance via API or hosted endpoints), in a manner that allows such third party to exercise meaningful control over the inputs, parameters, or training data. This does not include (a) end-user products with model capabilities solely embedded within specific features or harnesses, or (b) mere relaying of requests to models hosted by others.

"Meaningful control over the inputs" is so ambiguous as to be nearly meaningless. Does a model merely summarizing a user's submitted support tickets, give that user meaningful control over the inputs?

Don't get me wrong - I appreciate that Mistral needs to walk a fine line for its own sustainability, and that sustainability is a good thing! And I may just be an old person ranting at a cloud. But "open" used to mean something, back in my day!

[–] maxloh 13 hours ago

Calling this open weight is misleading. That's why we had huge backlash when Redis, Elasticsearch, and Terraform went source-available, right?

Weight-available is a better adjective for this kind of licensing. Same for Qwen, GLM, Kimi, MiniMax, etc. If they really want to be open source, they should pick an OSI-approved license.

[–] dannyw 14 hours ago

"The requirements set forth in Section 2 do not apply to: (a) internal use of the Model or its derivative works, defined as any use that does not make the Model or its derivative works available to third parties, [...]"

Works for me. I can host it, I can run it, I can use it; but if I want to sell access to it as an inference provider, I'd have to get a license.

The economics of open-weight models has always been shaky. It's not an OSI license yes, but metaphorically it's kinda like AGPL.

[–] vincentshipsit 14 hours ago

They should have used AGPL then.

[–] xyzzy_plugh 14 hours ago

Raw license text:

https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mistral-Large-4-1T-A52B/raw...

Very much not open as in open source. It's a shame an organization such as OSI doesn't get out ahead of licensing of weights, what do we call this? "Weights Available" ?

[–] maxloh 13 hours ago

The OSI actually published an "open-source" definition for model weights, which requires the training code and training data composition to be published. The exact training corpus can remain private though.

https://opensource.org/ai/open-source-ai-definition

[–] asgeirn 14 hours ago

Specifically, if you're serving it as a "Model as a Service" business you need a license. Other uses do not.

[–] contravariant 13 hours ago

It's always a bit unclear to me to what extent you're bound by a copyright when you're not distributing a work.

If someone sends me a copy while fully adhering to the license, what right does someone have to tell me what I can do with it? If I buy a book do I not have a right to read it? Lend it to people?

It's probably a good thing libraries already existed pre modern copyright.

[–] seizethecheese 9 hours ago

Somewhat worse, it’s actually if you serve any model at all, you need a license.

[–] rat9988 14 hours ago

I think this open debate depends on who you talk to. Not all the people agree with this vision.

[–] sigmar 14 hours ago

Meh, that's more of a website ToS than an enforceable license. These weights weren't human authored and lack copyright. the enforceability of these terms are tantamount to a website ToS because Mistral would have to rely on contract law.

[–] wang_li 13 hours ago

You think copyright applies in this industry? The AI companies certainly don't think it does.