7 ms·

HuggingFace Text Generation License No Longer Open-Source

84 points by bratao 3y ago

tyre 3y ago
It’s still open source. The only new limitation is that you can’t monetize the model itself, which is fine. They have to make money. You can still: + use it for personal use + use it as part of a commercial project + sell a hosted service of <v1.0 You cannot: + wrap an API around the library (v1.0+) and sell that, without a license from HF. This is less restrictive in practice than some of the extreme Open Source copyleft licenses. It’s fine.
- ninjin 3y ago
  It is not open source since it violates the very definition of open source [1]. They (and you) are free to call whatever this license is something else and I am sure there are many great terms, but it is greatly dishonest to use a term others have worked hard to define for nearly thirty years while not adhering to the definition. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition This reminds me of that language model coming out of the PRC about a year ago that claimed to be open, yet it turned out that it was only the code that was open and not the model itself. Which is fine (your labour on your terms), but use a different term in that case as I can assure you most people have an interest in code and weights, not just the former.
  - xeromal 3y ago
    Evolution my dear brother. Evolution.
    - jen20 3y ago
      More like regression than evolution.
      - Culonavirus 3y ago
        There's a gold rush going on right now. And everything AI-related is the gold. Hence non-open-source is now totally-open-source-don't-you-say-a-bad-thing-about-it-source! See: OpenAI. Actually it's now totally OK to loooove megacorps and their lovely and caring ways to do things, after all it's totally a GOOD thing only a few select megacorps can do cutting edge training otherwise some closet nazi may build a hitler bot in his basent!
        EarlKing 3y ago
        It's been totally OK to love corporations for about two decades running... ever since some clown told everyone that they should provide them with free labor (which is their idea of what 'free software' really means).
        fao_ 3y ago
        I'm not sure you understand what the Open Source movement was pushing for in the first place. Exploitation of labour was, very literally, the main argument ESR put forward in favour of the Bazaar model -- and it is the reason Open Source as a term exists.
    - twirlip 3y ago
      Rather, it is the dilution of the meaning of open source because true and pure open source such as GPL or Apache is too powerful for some people to accept.
      - EarlKing 3y ago
        TIL that giving innovations away to the bourgeoisie is 'powerful'. This is obviously some bizarre sado-masochistic definition of 'powerful' I was not previously familiar with involving whips, chains, and dragons.
        xeromal 3y ago
        Hahahah. I love some good ole sarcasm.
  - Kiro 3y ago
    > They (and you) are free to call whatever this license is something else I am also free to call it open source.
    - ninjin 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - simjnd 3y ago
      Indeed, you're free to call a pig a horse.
      - mycall 3y ago
        Mr. Porse is the most famous Porse of all.
      - EarlKing 3y ago
        "‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things–that’s all.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master–that’s all’" -- Humpty Dumpty to Alice, _Through the Looking Glass_ See https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html for an actual historical definition of open source, free of corporate propaganda.
    - zarathustreal 3y ago
      True, but surely you wouldn't intentionally label yourself ignorant? Also, wouldn't you consider willfully spreading false information rather insidious?
      - Pannoniae 3y ago
        It's not false information. OSI doesn't own a trademark for "open source".
  - EarlKing 3y ago
    That is not open source. That is OSI's proprietary definition that postdates the notion of open source by almost a decade, and represents the third attempt by corporate america to appropriate free software for their own interests. Open source has always meant that the source is available. I would advise you learn about what open source[1] actually is and ignore the corporate trolls who continue to try to rewrite history and the dictionary to their benefit. --- [1] https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html
    - ninjin 3y ago
      I do not buy Martin Tournoij’s argument as it essentially boils down to “no one owns a language” and “there is some prior use that I could find”. Term formation is – as Martin rightfully points out – messy and taking this first-mention approach poorly reflects how consensus around meaning forms among us humans. My take is (I think) pragmatic. I know for a fact that both OSI and FSF had a desire to delineate terms for their own agendas (both of which have been stated in the open). Both worked hard over decades to explore the implications of their definitions and we as a society also worked with them to form some kind of consensus of what these terms mean. Heck, it is not like Free Software is not problematic as a term due to the ambiguity (and prior usage…) of the word free and FSF has discussed this at great length. Likewise, Open Source is of course flawed as a term in its own way, but it is not useful to start muddying the waters around the term at this point as there is a consensus in place that allows us to have a discussion about Open Source and its flaws to begin with. The Ethical Source movement for example object to both Open Source and Free Software licenses, while still adhering to freely sharing code. Great! I happen to disagree with them, but I think their reasoning is fine and they decided to invent their own (obviously faulty in some ways) term to delineate themselves from those they disagree with. Similarly, I wish this anti-corporate, source-available, whatever proto-movement that keeps popping up would get together, write a manifesto, and come up with a name rather than dive into discussions such as this and try to somehow argue that when the great majority of us used Open Source as a term for the last twenty or so years what we actually had in mind included licenses which restricted fields of use and discriminated against persons and/or groups. Sorry, I do not buy that, not even for a second. As something mildly tangential. I find it confusing that members of this proto-movement seems to both support venture capital-fueled start-ups such as Hugging Face and at the same time frequently uses Marxist-esque terms. Heck, I have also seen attacks on Open Source authors from people using alt-right terms. Maybe there is more than one new movement out there? Regardless, I look forward to seeing what term they end up using and reading their reasoning and definition when they finally stop arguing semantics.
  - yankput 3y ago
    Note that huggingface never calls it “open source”.
    - ninjin 3y ago
      Thank you, I was aware of this but looking at my initial comment I did not make this clear and they do deserve credit for communicating honestly and clearly, especially when so many others do not.
  - LightFog 3y ago
    The term Open Source is ambiguous and has always been rejected by the original proponents of Free (as in Freedom) software as a corporatation-derived attempt to lessen the ‘Freedom’ bit. So defending the term Open Source is probably not the hill to die on.
    - ninjin 3y ago
      There are far more than two camps and FSF was born out of a culture that existed in the 60s and 70s of which the FSF is not a perfect representation either. In fact, several communities carrying that 60/70s spirit and using permissive licenses also disagree with the OSI mission and reject licenses that OSI approves (Apache 2.0 in particular). I do however think it is worth fighting against the erosion of a term that is widely accepted.
      - LightFog 3y ago
        The specific term Open Source (which is what I was deliberately mentioning - rather than the notion of free or open software) is from the late 90s and was intentionally introduced to make free or open software more palatable to corporations. It itself is a deliberate watering down of the notion of free software, so it is funny to see it being defended like this.
        ninjin 3y ago
        > It itself is a deliberate watering down of the notion of free software, so it is funny to see it being defended like this. No, because as I pointed out there are more than two camps and there are some of us that find even what OSI approves too restrictive. Just like OSI does not own the culture of open and free software, neither does FSF. Thus you can not claim that OSI watered down and corrupted the “true” spirit of free and open software. What they did was to formalise and create (some say appropriate) a term to serve their purposes and what they formalised inarguably captures a subset of what was and is open and free software. Regardless of whether we agree with their agenda or not, I do think it is fair to let them have the term they defined as it makes it easier to have a discourse around software licensing without all of the sudden including source-available licenses and the likes.
fbdab103 3y ago
I am more inclined to agree with the FSF in that open source should not unduly limit how I use a tool. If I can no longer embed it in a product I sell, it is source available, but not open source. Regardless, if the library is worth anything (I am not familiar), I would suspect the pre 1.0 version to be forked and sucked up by AWS/Azure/etc similar to ElasticSearch.
- amelius 3y ago
  Open source is a misnomer. It should have been libre source. (then this discussion wouldn't exist)
- EarlKing 3y ago
  I am less inclined to agree with the FSF in that bourgeoisie who think they can hoover up innovations from the commons to build empires and oppress the masses should at least have to pay for the privilege. Thankfully I know I'm not alone in that appraisal, and the Gilded Age of Free and Open Source is coming to a close, as evidenced by projects like this getting a clue and so many robber barons being incensed that they have to actually pay for things they took for granted.
  - fbdab103 3y ago
    Nobody put a gun to their head and made them share their work. If they get indignant that people profited off of their backs then maybe sharing of the work was the wrong approach. If they wanted to profit from their ideas, they could have started with selling the product from the start.
    - Pannoniae 3y ago
      "If they get indignant that people profited off of their backs then maybe sharing of the work was the wrong approach." No, no and no. I can want to publish the project to the community but at the same time want to restrict corporations from using it. It goes against the OSI open-source definition but.... we should maybe think about how much that definition is fit for purpose then. This is like saying "if you don't want someone to steal your work, just don't publish it"
liuliu 3y ago
Don't see any ill-will here. They changed license fairly early without soliciting years of contributions from others (like, only a few months old and probably a handful of contributions from public from what I can skim). They don't call it open-source any more and the new license doesn't contain any words of "open" or "free" or "source" in the name ("Hugging Face Optimized Inference License"). People make mistakes when choosing a license and should be OK if they course-correct fairly quickly.
- villgax 3y ago
  Doesn't make it okay just because X months have elapsed & suddenly they were getting huge traction
phillipcarter 3y ago
It's sad that most organizations see open source as cheaper COGS rather than a way to solve their own problems more efficiently and improve critical infrastructure they rely on. And so the only options are for HuggingFace to eat the cost of R&D, possibly to improve a direct competitor, or to limit commercial use in this way.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Isn't this what AGPL is for?
  - phillipcarter 3y ago
    Yes, but then people just don't use it and/or build alternatives. Not to mention that even if it's irrational, some people just do not like GPL stuff.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      Aren't the "some people" the exact people you're trying to get not to use it, i.e. direct competitors or SaaS companies who give nothing back? And nothing stops you from selling them a separate license, in exchange for money.
      - phillipcarter 3y ago
        Perhaps I'm not being clear. People (myself included) steer clear of anything with "GPL" in it as much as we possibly can, whether the reason is rational or irrational. The reasons don't matter - it's just what happens. And so saying something like "you can sell a separate license" doesn't change that dynamic.
        fbdab103 3y ago
        I am unsure what you want. To make the source available for group X, but denied to group Y? - X presumably being someone without any potential profitability path - Y someone who can make money from it? I can get the rationale of not wanting Amazon and Microsoft to profit from you work, but I am unsure how you thread this licensing needle without a GPL-similar license from the start. Either you put it out in the open without restrictions (and eat the potential consequences), encumber it in such a way that no corporation wants to touch it, or you never share it.

84 points by bratao 3y ago

tyre 3y ago

It’s still open source. The only new limitation is that you can’t monetize the model itself, which is fine. They have to make money. You can still: + use it for personal use + use it as part of a commercial project + sell a hosted service of <v1.0 You cannot: + wrap an API around the library (v1.0+) and sell that, without a license from HF. This is less restrictive in practice than some of the extreme Open Source copyleft licenses. It’s fine.

ninjin 3y ago
It is not open source since it violates the very definition of open source [1]. They (and you) are free to call whatever this license is something else and I am sure there are many great terms, but it is greatly dishonest to use a term others have worked hard to define for nearly thirty years while not adhering to the definition. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition This reminds me of that language model coming out of the PRC about a year ago that claimed to be open, yet it turned out that it was only the code that was open and not the model itself. Which is fine (your labour on your terms), but use a different term in that case as I can assure you most people have an interest in code and weights, not just the former.
- xeromal 3y ago
  Evolution my dear brother. Evolution.
  - jen20 3y ago
    More like regression than evolution.
    - Culonavirus 3y ago
      There's a gold rush going on right now. And everything AI-related is the gold. Hence non-open-source is now totally-open-source-don't-you-say-a-bad-thing-about-it-source! See: OpenAI. Actually it's now totally OK to loooove megacorps and their lovely and caring ways to do things, after all it's totally a GOOD thing only a few select megacorps can do cutting edge training otherwise some closet nazi may build a hitler bot in his basent!
      - EarlKing 3y ago
        It's been totally OK to love corporations for about two decades running... ever since some clown told everyone that they should provide them with free labor (which is their idea of what 'free software' really means).
      - fao_ 3y ago
        I'm not sure you understand what the Open Source movement was pushing for in the first place. Exploitation of labour was, very literally, the main argument ESR put forward in favour of the Bazaar model -- and it is the reason Open Source as a term exists.
  - twirlip 3y ago
    Rather, it is the dilution of the meaning of open source because true and pure open source such as GPL or Apache is too powerful for some people to accept.
    - EarlKing 3y ago
      TIL that giving innovations away to the bourgeoisie is 'powerful'. This is obviously some bizarre sado-masochistic definition of 'powerful' I was not previously familiar with involving whips, chains, and dragons.
      - xeromal 3y ago
        Hahahah. I love some good ole sarcasm.
- Kiro 3y ago
  > They (and you) are free to call whatever this license is something else I am also free to call it open source.
  - ninjin 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - simjnd 3y ago
    Indeed, you're free to call a pig a horse.
    - mycall 3y ago
      Mr. Porse is the most famous Porse of all.
    - EarlKing 3y ago
      "‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean different things–that’s all.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master–that’s all’" -- Humpty Dumpty to Alice, _Through the Looking Glass_ See https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html for an actual historical definition of open source, free of corporate propaganda.
  - zarathustreal 3y ago
    True, but surely you wouldn't intentionally label yourself ignorant? Also, wouldn't you consider willfully spreading false information rather insidious?
    - Pannoniae 3y ago
      It's not false information. OSI doesn't own a trademark for "open source".
- EarlKing 3y ago
  That is not open source. That is OSI's proprietary definition that postdates the notion of open source by almost a decade, and represents the third attempt by corporate america to appropriate free software for their own interests. Open source has always meant that the source is available. I would advise you learn about what open source[1] actually is and ignore the corporate trolls who continue to try to rewrite history and the dictionary to their benefit. --- [1] https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html https://www.arp242.net/open-source.html
  - ninjin 3y ago
    I do not buy Martin Tournoij’s argument as it essentially boils down to “no one owns a language” and “there is some prior use that I could find”. Term formation is – as Martin rightfully points out – messy and taking this first-mention approach poorly reflects how consensus around meaning forms among us humans. My take is (I think) pragmatic. I know for a fact that both OSI and FSF had a desire to delineate terms for their own agendas (both of which have been stated in the open). Both worked hard over decades to explore the implications of their definitions and we as a society also worked with them to form some kind of consensus of what these terms mean. Heck, it is not like Free Software is not problematic as a term due to the ambiguity (and prior usage…) of the word free and FSF has discussed this at great length. Likewise, Open Source is of course flawed as a term in its own way, but it is not useful to start muddying the waters around the term at this point as there is a consensus in place that allows us to have a discussion about Open Source and its flaws to begin with. The Ethical Source movement for example object to both Open Source and Free Software licenses, while still adhering to freely sharing code. Great! I happen to disagree with them, but I think their reasoning is fine and they decided to invent their own (obviously faulty in some ways) term to delineate themselves from those they disagree with. Similarly, I wish this anti-corporate, source-available, whatever proto-movement that keeps popping up would get together, write a manifesto, and come up with a name rather than dive into discussions such as this and try to somehow argue that when the great majority of us used Open Source as a term for the last twenty or so years what we actually had in mind included licenses which restricted fields of use and discriminated against persons and/or groups. Sorry, I do not buy that, not even for a second. As something mildly tangential. I find it confusing that members of this proto-movement seems to both support venture capital-fueled start-ups such as Hugging Face and at the same time frequently uses Marxist-esque terms. Heck, I have also seen attacks on Open Source authors from people using alt-right terms. Maybe there is more than one new movement out there? Regardless, I look forward to seeing what term they end up using and reading their reasoning and definition when they finally stop arguing semantics.
- yankput 3y ago
  Note that huggingface never calls it “open source”.
  - ninjin 3y ago
    Thank you, I was aware of this but looking at my initial comment I did not make this clear and they do deserve credit for communicating honestly and clearly, especially when so many others do not.
- LightFog 3y ago
  The term Open Source is ambiguous and has always been rejected by the original proponents of Free (as in Freedom) software as a corporatation-derived attempt to lessen the ‘Freedom’ bit. So defending the term Open Source is probably not the hill to die on.
  - ninjin 3y ago
    There are far more than two camps and FSF was born out of a culture that existed in the 60s and 70s of which the FSF is not a perfect representation either. In fact, several communities carrying that 60/70s spirit and using permissive licenses also disagree with the OSI mission and reject licenses that OSI approves (Apache 2.0 in particular). I do however think it is worth fighting against the erosion of a term that is widely accepted.
    - LightFog 3y ago
      The specific term Open Source (which is what I was deliberately mentioning - rather than the notion of free or open software) is from the late 90s and was intentionally introduced to make free or open software more palatable to corporations. It itself is a deliberate watering down of the notion of free software, so it is funny to see it being defended like this.
      - ninjin 3y ago
        > It itself is a deliberate watering down of the notion of free software, so it is funny to see it being defended like this. No, because as I pointed out there are more than two camps and there are some of us that find even what OSI approves too restrictive. Just like OSI does not own the culture of open and free software, neither does FSF. Thus you can not claim that OSI watered down and corrupted the “true” spirit of free and open software. What they did was to formalise and create (some say appropriate) a term to serve their purposes and what they formalised inarguably captures a subset of what was and is open and free software. Regardless of whether we agree with their agenda or not, I do think it is fair to let them have the term they defined as it makes it easier to have a discourse around software licensing without all of the sudden including source-available licenses and the likes.

fbdab103 3y ago

I am more inclined to agree with the FSF in that open source should not unduly limit how I use a tool. If I can no longer embed it in a product I sell, it is source available, but not open source. Regardless, if the library is worth anything (I am not familiar), I would suspect the pre 1.0 version to be forked and sucked up by AWS/Azure/etc similar to ElasticSearch.

amelius 3y ago
Open source is a misnomer. It should have been libre source. (then this discussion wouldn't exist)
EarlKing 3y ago
I am less inclined to agree with the FSF in that bourgeoisie who think they can hoover up innovations from the commons to build empires and oppress the masses should at least have to pay for the privilege. Thankfully I know I'm not alone in that appraisal, and the Gilded Age of Free and Open Source is coming to a close, as evidenced by projects like this getting a clue and so many robber barons being incensed that they have to actually pay for things they took for granted.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  Nobody put a gun to their head and made them share their work. If they get indignant that people profited off of their backs then maybe sharing of the work was the wrong approach. If they wanted to profit from their ideas, they could have started with selling the product from the start.
  - Pannoniae 3y ago
    "If they get indignant that people profited off of their backs then maybe sharing of the work was the wrong approach." No, no and no. I can want to publish the project to the community but at the same time want to restrict corporations from using it. It goes against the OSI open-source definition but.... we should maybe think about how much that definition is fit for purpose then. This is like saying "if you don't want someone to steal your work, just don't publish it"

liuliu 3y ago

Don't see any ill-will here. They changed license fairly early without soliciting years of contributions from others (like, only a few months old and probably a handful of contributions from public from what I can skim). They don't call it open-source any more and the new license doesn't contain any words of "open" or "free" or "source" in the name ("Hugging Face Optimized Inference License"). People make mistakes when choosing a license and should be OK if they course-correct fairly quickly.

villgax 3y ago
Doesn't make it okay just because X months have elapsed & suddenly they were getting huge traction

phillipcarter 3y ago

It's sad that most organizations see open source as cheaper COGS rather than a way to solve their own problems more efficiently and improve critical infrastructure they rely on. And so the only options are for HuggingFace to eat the cost of R&D, possibly to improve a direct competitor, or to limit commercial use in this way.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
Isn't this what AGPL is for?
- phillipcarter 3y ago
  Yes, but then people just don't use it and/or build alternatives. Not to mention that even if it's irrational, some people just do not like GPL stuff.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    Aren't the "some people" the exact people you're trying to get not to use it, i.e. direct competitors or SaaS companies who give nothing back? And nothing stops you from selling them a separate license, in exchange for money.
    - phillipcarter 3y ago
      Perhaps I'm not being clear. People (myself included) steer clear of anything with "GPL" in it as much as we possibly can, whether the reason is rational or irrational. The reasons don't matter - it's just what happens. And so saying something like "you can sell a separate license" doesn't change that dynamic.
      - fbdab103 3y ago
        I am unsure what you want. To make the source available for group X, but denied to group Y? - X presumably being someone without any potential profitability path - Y someone who can make money from it? I can get the rationale of not wanting Amazon and Microsoft to profit from you work, but I am unsure how you thread this licensing needle without a GPL-similar license from the start. Either you put it out in the open without restrictions (and eat the potential consequences), encumber it in such a way that no corporation wants to touch it, or you never share it.