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Meta Open-Sources Computer Vision Foundation Model DINOv2
- Pandabob 3y agoAlas the license is CC-BY-NC 4.0.
- dragonwriter 3y agoWhich is not open source.
- chaxor 3y agoI know this is a bit of a meme now in HN, and I agree that GPLv3 is certainly a much better license. However to push back a bit, I would say that at least the license allows researchers to do the important work that needs to be done. It seems that there are a lot of grifters that are making "small businesses" off of LLMs that are pushing the 'not real open source' narrative a bit too much. Open source for allowing research is far more important than allowing some group of script kiddies trying to make a silly LLM app to make a quick buck, and something like GPLv3 is even better in this regard since a company can be founded on it, but completely transparently - which is arguably a bit better than have a 100LoC python script in a completely opaque MIT license that's trying to be used to sell to a company for $$, which is imo highly unethical (not novel or intellectually challenging in the slightest, and therefore not valuable). So yes, open source should be what we strive for, but research is the most important aspect of OSS.
- cozzyd 3y agoYeah, not sure why they didn't choose AGPL or GPL instead of a license meant for documentation...
- dragonwriter 3y ago> I know this is a bit of a meme now in HN, and I agree that GPLv3 is certainly a much better license. The GPLv3 is certainly an open source license, sure. Better in blanket terms is...not the point I’m making, and I am not arguing that, in this space, all open source licenses are categorically better than non-open source licenses. But, I do think its important to describe licenses accurately and understand the implications of particular licenses. > However to push back a bit, I would say that at least the license allows researchers to do the important work that needs to be done. Yes, as far as sharing research, this is worlds better than OpenAI. And its worth noting that while the usage restrictions aren’t as competition-restricting, the most widely touted successful “open source” model (Stable Diffusion) is also not open source strictly (the license has usage restrictions) though there are some notable truly-open-source models.
- perryizgr8 3y agoIf I can read the source code it is open source.
- commoner 3y agoIf you can read the source code, it is source-available. This model is source-available but not open source because CC-BY-NC 4.0 restricts the way the software can be used (noncommercial use only). This is contrary to the Open Source Definition's "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor" clause: > 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor > The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research. https://opensource.org/osd/ https://opensource.org/osd/ For transparency and user freedom, CC-BY-NC 4.0 is still better than the proprietary license of OpenAI's closed source models.
- perryizgr8 3y agoI don't agree. My definition of "open source" is that the source is open.
- ssddanbrown 3y agoJust open to viewing? Would you consider stolen and GitHub-posted code as open source? Licenses adhering to the OSD generally ensure open viewing, open use, open modification and open distribution. Stripping that back to just viewing removes a large part of openness that "open source" has been built upon.
- MaxikCZ 3y agoLuckily to prevent everybody interpreting sounds and glyphs as they wish, we -as a civilization- agreed to adhere to certain standards of how things would be interpreted. The same way we agreed that "allow" means can but not must, we agreed what open source means. Just because you disagree doesn't mean you are in the right.
- stochastimus 3y agoFunny I came here just to say the exact same thing.
- pelorat 3y agoExpect to see more of that with the EU AI act looming over things.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- orangepurple 3y agoMeta Releases Restricted Source Code for Computer Vision Foundation Model DINOv2
- gnabgib 3y agoMeta-meta-meta, this low content post references one of the (8 and counting) hn posts on meta's post about DINO (36 days ago, 176 points)[0] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35605039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35605039
- sacnoradhq 3y agoIt's probably a random person. But, as long as it's not another story about the Surgeon General saying how social media is harmful for kids, hob-knobbing at the next COP conference next to oil companies, getting gigadollar fines related to GDPR? Am I missing anything? Have there been any actual good news lately?
- _gtly 3y agosee: https://dinov2.metademolab.com/ https://dinov2.metademolab.com/
- sacnoradhq 3y agoAnd there's another round of layoffs tomorrow. Security alert for everyone to WfH.
- behnamoh 3y agoWhat's the benefit for Meta? They are now the true open source AI providers (after OpenAI got closedAI), but I wonder why they keep releasing such models for free and kinda open source?
- rapsey 3y agoMeta has one of the best if not the best open source track record. They do it likely because it does not interfere with their business model. If outsiders find ways to improve their tech it only helps them.
- robertlagrant 3y agoGoogle's is pretty incredible too. Golang; VP8; Chromium; K8s; Android.
- ftufek 3y agoMy guess is this isn't their competitive edge, network effects, products, data and distribution is. In a way, it takes away their competitors edge while racing to the bottom to compete with open source. At the same time, they establish themselves as experts and keep attracting great talent that wants to publish their work openly. And it benefits all of us, so good marketing amongst developers too.
- throwaway20222 3y agoThis comment resonates with me and reminds me of T-Mobile making international roaming free; they didn’t really have a ton of business coming from that service, but knew how important it was for their competitors. They made theirs free and forced the industry down that path. (Have since added some fees back but the point is similar to your thoughts)
- imwm 3y agoAs Ben Thompson pointed out recently, unlike Google and OpenAI, Meta benefits from open source AI taking off because that makes everyone better content creators, which accrues further value to their social media platforms.
- bg24 3y agoI am not an expert, but Meta might be missing out on a business opportunity by being blindsided on everything social media. Over time, every company (Google, Apple, Amazon) diversified themselves. With their AI firepower, they could have explored a number of new avenues. Every business need not boot with billion users.
- forgingahead 3y agoInteresting to see if/how this is different (or maybe built upon) Segment Anything[0]. For folks in the know: I often see segmentation models on video frames producing patchy results (see the DinoV2 video of the running dog, the body gets black patches randomly, so the segmentation fails for certain frames). What methods are folks using to deal with this - standard fine-tuning, or is there a way to "force" the area to be cleanly segmented (ie, add a bounding box around the class to supplement the data)? And is it something that can be implemented in foundation models, or are we always going to have patchy zero-shot results like this on video files? [0]https://github.com/facebookresearch/segment-anything https://github.com/facebookresearch/segment-anything
- rocauc 3y agoOriginal release from Meta (April 17): https://ai.facebook.com/blog/dino-v2-computer-vision-self-supervised-learning/ https://ai.facebook.com/blog/dino-v2-computer-vision-self-su... Demos: https://dinov2.metademolab.com/ https://dinov2.metademolab.com/
- eclectic29 3y agoI feel Meta, Google and OpenAI are the real AI leaders of this industry. Definitely not Microsoft who is riding on integrations with OpenAI APIs. Just saying.
- Fordec 3y agoMicrosoft made a massive investment in OpenAI and get 75% of OpenAI profit at least until that earns them the $10B invested back. Microsoft, for now, from a financials perspective are OpenAI rather than any old third party integrator. They are the paymasters.
- TekMol 3y agoThe license is "Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International": https://github.com/facebookresearch/dinov2/blob/main/LICENSE https://github.com/facebookresearch/dinov2/blob/main/LICENSE The license seems to only apply to "sharing" the code. Probably because it addresses copyright issues. But what about commercial use of the code and weights? Can one incorporate those into a server side system which lets users pay for using it?
- mkl 3y agoTo get it onto your server you need to copy it (= reproduce it), and so you have to obey the license and not use that copy for commercial purposes. IANAL, but that seems kind of obvious.
- TekMol 3y agoIf we follow this (obvious as you say) line of thought, can you read the code while at work? Isn't that a use of the copy (your browser made) for commercial purposes? I don't think this is what copyright is about. As far as I know, it is about sharing a copy with a third party. But I am happy to be corrected if someone has a link to a reputable source that says otherwise.
- mkl 3y agoCopyright law is about copying, full-stop. It doesn't matter if you are copying it for yourself, it's still a copy. That's why copyright laws in some jurisdictions had to be updated to allow temporary copies in RAM existing as part of use (e.g. USA [0]), or to allow format-shifting like putting a CD you own on an MP3 player (e.g. NZ [1]), and some attempts didn't get it right at first (e.g. USA [2]). [0] https://itlaw.fandom.com/wiki/Temporary_copies https://itlaw.fandom.com/wiki/Temporary_copies [1] https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/copyright-law https://www.consumer.org.nz/articles/copyright-law [2] http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise20.html http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise20.html
- TekMol 3y ago
- RobotToaster 3y agoIt's not open source, the noncommercial licence violates several points of the open source definition.
- MichaelRazum 3y agoSo what would you do if you want to use it in production? I mean is it worthless? To be honest not sure of what to think about it.