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The code is open source (Mozilla Public Licence), it's only the licence for the model weights which prohibits commercial use. I don't think the concept of open

The code is open source (Mozilla Public Licence), it's only the licence for the model weights which prohibits commercial use. I don't think the concept of open source translates very well to model weights. The "source" is effectively the model architecture (which is freely available) and the training scripts/data (I don't know if these are available or not). With access to those, you can reproduce the weights yourself. IMO the situation is closer to "source is open, but if you want to use our published binaries commercially, pay us". It's not free/libre, but it's also not unreasonable. Coqui is a small company, and freely releasing the weights for commercial use would deprive them of one of the few revenue streams they have.

JoshTriplett 3y ago
> IMO the situation is closer to "source is open, but if you want to use our published binaries commercially, pay us". In such a circumstance you can still compile the source yourself. In this case, you cannot. Also: > Coqui is also innovating in open source model licensing. "innovating" by making something that isn't open and falsely calling it "open source". And even that isn't "innovating" because a few others are already engaging in the same false advertising.
- nmfisher 3y ago
  In this case, you can train it yourself. That’s why I think it’s a fair comparison.
  - JoshTriplett 3y ago
    It's not at all obvious if they're providing sufficient training data to do so. "Supply your own training data" seems the equivalent of "supply your own source code".
    - 3np 3y ago
      Yeah, it feels akin to claiming your obfuscated binary libraries and apps are open source because you happened to release the in-house-built compiler used to make them under a free license.
zajio1am 3y ago
> I don't think the concept of open source translates very well to model weights. I think it translates pretty well. Model weights are not really that different from other non-code assets, like images or 3D models. If i can bundle open source code with such assets and offer the whole application under open source license, then such assets are open source. If the license of such assets prohibits that, they are clearly not open source. There is question about what is 'source code' for such assets and how to apply copyleft licenses like GPL to them, but non-copyleft open source licenses like MIT/X11 do not care about that and could be easily applied on model weights or any other assets.

JoshTriplett 3y ago

> IMO the situation is closer to "source is open, but if you want to use our published binaries commercially, pay us". In such a circumstance you can still compile the source yourself. In this case, you cannot. Also: > Coqui is also innovating in open source model licensing. "innovating" by making something that isn't open and falsely calling it "open source". And even that isn't "innovating" because a few others are already engaging in the same false advertising.

nmfisher 3y ago
In this case, you can train it yourself. That’s why I think it’s a fair comparison.
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  It's not at all obvious if they're providing sufficient training data to do so. "Supply your own training data" seems the equivalent of "supply your own source code".
  - 3np 3y ago
    Yeah, it feels akin to claiming your obfuscated binary libraries and apps are open source because you happened to release the in-house-built compiler used to make them under a free license.

zajio1am 3y ago

> I don't think the concept of open source translates very well to model weights. I think it translates pretty well. Model weights are not really that different from other non-code assets, like images or 3D models. If i can bundle open source code with such assets and offer the whole application under open source license, then such assets are open source. If the license of such assets prohibits that, they are clearly not open source. There is question about what is 'source code' for such assets and how to apply copyleft licenses like GPL to them, but non-copyleft open source licenses like MIT/X11 do not care about that and could be easily applied on model weights or any other assets.