6 ms·

No, it's not. The Llama 3 Community License Agreement is not an open source license. Open source licenses need to meet the criteria of the only widely accepted

by Flimm 2y ago

No, it's not. The Llama 3 Community License Agreement is not an open source license. Open source licenses need to meet the criteria of the only widely accepted definition of "open source", and that's the one formulated by the OSI [0]. This license has multiple restrictions on use and distribution which make it not open source. I know Facebook keeps calling this stuff open source, maybe in order to get all the good will that open source branding gets you, but that doesn't make it true. It's like a company calling their candy vegan while listing one its ingredients as pork-based gelatin. No matter how many times the company advertises that their product is vegan, it's not, because it doesn't meet the definition of vegan. [0] - https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd

CamperBob2 2y ago
Open source licenses need to meet the criteria of the only widely accepted definition of "open source", and that's the one formulated by the OSI [0] Who died and made OSI God?
- vbarrielle 2y ago
  The OSI was created about 20 years ago and defined and popularized the term open source. Their definition has been widely accepted over that period. Recently, companies are trying to market things as open source when in reality, they fail to adhere to the definition. I think we should not let these companies change the meaning of the term, which means it's important to explain every time they try to seem more open than they are. I'm afraid the battle is being lost though.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >The OSI was created about 20 years ago and defined and popularized the term open source. Their definition has been widely accepted over that period. It was defined and accepted by the community well before OSI came around though.
    - gowld 2y ago
      Citation? Wikipedia would appreciate your contribution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source > Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Eric Allman, Guido van Rossum, Michael Tiemann, Paul Vixie, Jamie Zawinski, and Eric Raymond [...] > At that meeting, alternatives to the term "free software" were discussed. [...] Raymond argued for "open source. The assembled developers took a vote, and the winner was announced at a press conference the same evening The original "Open source Definition" was derived from Debian's Social Contract, which did not use the term "open source" https://web.archive.org/web/20140328095107/http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html#guidelines https://web.archive.org/web/20140328095107/http://www.debian...
      - CamperBob2 2y ago
        Citation? Wikipedia would appreciate your contribution. It's not hard to find earlier examples where the phrase is used to describe enabling and (yes) leveraging community contributions to accomplish things that otherwise wouldn't be practical; see my other post for a couple of those. But then people will rightfully object that the term "Open Source", when used in a capacity related to journalistic or intelligence-gathering activities, doesn't have anything to do with software licensing. Even if OSI had trademarked the phrase, which they didn't, that shouldn't constrain its use in another context. To which I'd counter that this statement is equally true when discussing AI models. We are going to have to completely rewire copyright law from the ground up to deal with this. Flame wars over what "Open Source" means or who has the right to use the phrase are going to look completely inconsequential by the time the dust settles.
        Flimm 2y ago
        I'll concede that "open source" may mean other things in other contexts. For example, an open source river may mean something in particular to those who study rivers. This thread was not talking about a new context, it was not even talking about the weights of a machine learning model or the licensing of training data, it was talking about the licensing of the code in a particular GitHub repository, llama3. AI may make copyright obsolete, or it may make copyright more important than ever, but my prediction is that the IT community will lose something of great value if the term "open source" is diluted to include licenses that restrict usage, restrict distribution, and restrict modification. I can understand why people may want to choose somewhat restrictive licenses, just like I can understand why a product may contain gelatin, but I don't like it when the product is mis-labelled as vegan. There are plenty of other terms that could be used, for example, "open" by itself. I'm honestly curious if you would defend a pork product labelled as vegan, or do you just feel that the analogy doesn't apply?
- MaxBarraclough 2y ago
  This isn't helpful. The community defers to the OSI's definition because it captures what they care about. We've seen people try to deceptively describe non-OSS projects as open source, and no doubt we will continue to see it. Thankfully the community (including Hacker News) is quick to call it out, and to insist on not cheapening the term. This is one the topics that just keeps turning up: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24483168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24483168 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31203209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31203209 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591820
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    This isn't helpful. The community... Speak for yourself, please. The term is much older than 1998, with one easily-Googled example being https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000639879.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000639879.pdf , and an explicit case of IT-related usage being https://i.imgur.com/Nw4is6s.png https://i.imgur.com/Nw4is6s.png from https://www.google.com/books/edition/InfoWarCon/09X3Ove9uKgC?hl=en&gbpv=0 https://www.google.com/books/edition/InfoWarCon/09X3Ove9uKgC... . Unless a registered trademark is involved (spoiler: it's not) no one, whether part of a so-called "community" or not, has any authority to gatekeep or dictate the terms under which a generic phrase like "open source" can be used.
    - Flimm 2y ago
      Neither of those usages relate to IT, they both are about sources of intelligence (espionage). Even if they were, the OSI definition won, nobody is using the definitions from 1995 CIA or the 1996 InfoConWar book in the realm of IT, not even Facebook. The community has the authority to complain about companies mis-labelling their pork products as vegan, even if nobody has a registered trademark on the term vegan. Would you tell people to shut up about that case because they don't have a registered trademark? Likewise, the community has authority to complain about Meta/Facebook mis-labelling code as open source even when they put restrictions on usage. It's not gate-keeping or dictatorship to complain about being misled or being lied to.
8note 2y ago
Isn't the MIT license the generally accepted "open source" license? It's a community owned term, not OSI owned
- henryfjordan 2y ago
  There are more licenses than just MIT that are "open source". GPL, BSD, MIT, Apache, some of the Creative Commons licenses, etc. MIT has become the defacto default though https://opensource.org/license https://opensource.org/license (linking to OSI for the list because it's convenient, not because they get to decide)
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  MIT is a permissive open source license, not the open source license.
NiloCK 2y ago
These discussions (ie, everything that follows here) would be much easier if the crowd insisting on the OSI definition of open source would capitalize Open Source. In English, proper nouns are capitalized. "Open" and "source" are both very normal English words. English speakers have "the right" to use them according to their own perspective and with personal context. It's the difference between referring to a blue tooth, and Bluetooth, or to an apple store or an Apple store.

by Flimm 2y ago

CamperBob2 2y ago

Open source licenses need to meet the criteria of the only widely accepted definition of "open source", and that's the one formulated by the OSI [0] Who died and made OSI God?

vbarrielle 2y ago
The OSI was created about 20 years ago and defined and popularized the term open source. Their definition has been widely accepted over that period. Recently, companies are trying to market things as open source when in reality, they fail to adhere to the definition. I think we should not let these companies change the meaning of the term, which means it's important to explain every time they try to seem more open than they are. I'm afraid the battle is being lost though.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >The OSI was created about 20 years ago and defined and popularized the term open source. Their definition has been widely accepted over that period. It was defined and accepted by the community well before OSI came around though.
  - gowld 2y ago
    Citation? Wikipedia would appreciate your contribution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source > Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Eric Allman, Guido van Rossum, Michael Tiemann, Paul Vixie, Jamie Zawinski, and Eric Raymond [...] > At that meeting, alternatives to the term "free software" were discussed. [...] Raymond argued for "open source. The assembled developers took a vote, and the winner was announced at a press conference the same evening The original "Open source Definition" was derived from Debian's Social Contract, which did not use the term "open source" https://web.archive.org/web/20140328095107/http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html#guidelines https://web.archive.org/web/20140328095107/http://www.debian...
    - CamperBob2 2y ago
      Citation? Wikipedia would appreciate your contribution. It's not hard to find earlier examples where the phrase is used to describe enabling and (yes) leveraging community contributions to accomplish things that otherwise wouldn't be practical; see my other post for a couple of those. But then people will rightfully object that the term "Open Source", when used in a capacity related to journalistic or intelligence-gathering activities, doesn't have anything to do with software licensing. Even if OSI had trademarked the phrase, which they didn't, that shouldn't constrain its use in another context. To which I'd counter that this statement is equally true when discussing AI models. We are going to have to completely rewire copyright law from the ground up to deal with this. Flame wars over what "Open Source" means or who has the right to use the phrase are going to look completely inconsequential by the time the dust settles.
      - Flimm 2y ago
        I'll concede that "open source" may mean other things in other contexts. For example, an open source river may mean something in particular to those who study rivers. This thread was not talking about a new context, it was not even talking about the weights of a machine learning model or the licensing of training data, it was talking about the licensing of the code in a particular GitHub repository, llama3. AI may make copyright obsolete, or it may make copyright more important than ever, but my prediction is that the IT community will lose something of great value if the term "open source" is diluted to include licenses that restrict usage, restrict distribution, and restrict modification. I can understand why people may want to choose somewhat restrictive licenses, just like I can understand why a product may contain gelatin, but I don't like it when the product is mis-labelled as vegan. There are plenty of other terms that could be used, for example, "open" by itself. I'm honestly curious if you would defend a pork product labelled as vegan, or do you just feel that the analogy doesn't apply?
MaxBarraclough 2y ago
This isn't helpful. The community defers to the OSI's definition because it captures what they care about. We've seen people try to deceptively describe non-OSS projects as open source, and no doubt we will continue to see it. Thankfully the community (including Hacker News) is quick to call it out, and to insist on not cheapening the term. This is one the topics that just keeps turning up: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24483168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24483168 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31203209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31203209 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36591820
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  This isn't helpful. The community... Speak for yourself, please. The term is much older than 1998, with one easily-Googled example being https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000639879.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000639879.pdf , and an explicit case of IT-related usage being https://i.imgur.com/Nw4is6s.png https://i.imgur.com/Nw4is6s.png from https://www.google.com/books/edition/InfoWarCon/09X3Ove9uKgC?hl=en&gbpv=0 https://www.google.com/books/edition/InfoWarCon/09X3Ove9uKgC... . Unless a registered trademark is involved (spoiler: it's not) no one, whether part of a so-called "community" or not, has any authority to gatekeep or dictate the terms under which a generic phrase like "open source" can be used.
  - Flimm 2y ago
    Neither of those usages relate to IT, they both are about sources of intelligence (espionage). Even if they were, the OSI definition won, nobody is using the definitions from 1995 CIA or the 1996 InfoConWar book in the realm of IT, not even Facebook. The community has the authority to complain about companies mis-labelling their pork products as vegan, even if nobody has a registered trademark on the term vegan. Would you tell people to shut up about that case because they don't have a registered trademark? Likewise, the community has authority to complain about Meta/Facebook mis-labelling code as open source even when they put restrictions on usage. It's not gate-keeping or dictatorship to complain about being misled or being lied to.

8note 2y ago

Isn't the MIT license the generally accepted "open source" license? It's a community owned term, not OSI owned

henryfjordan 2y ago
There are more licenses than just MIT that are "open source". GPL, BSD, MIT, Apache, some of the Creative Commons licenses, etc. MIT has become the defacto default though https://opensource.org/license https://opensource.org/license (linking to OSI for the list because it's convenient, not because they get to decide)
yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
MIT is a permissive open source license, not the open source license.

NiloCK 2y ago

These discussions (ie, everything that follows here) would be much easier if the crowd insisting on the OSI definition of open source would capitalize Open Source. In English, proper nouns are capitalized. "Open" and "source" are both very normal English words. English speakers have "the right" to use them according to their own perspective and with personal context. It's the difference between referring to a blue tooth, and Bluetooth, or to an apple store or an Apple store.