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> Why do people keep mislabeling this as Open Source? The whole point of calling something Open Source is that the "magic sauce" of how to build something is pu

> Why do people keep mislabeling this as Open Source? The whole point of calling something Open Source is that the "magic sauce" of how to build something is publicly available, so I could built it myself if I have the means. But without the training data publicly available, could I train Llama 3.1 if I had the means? I don't think not releasing the commit history of a project makes it not Open Source, this seems like that to me. What's important is you can download it, run it, modify it, and re-release it. Being able to see how the sausage was made would be interesting, but I don't think Meta have to show their training data any more than they are obligated to release their planning meeting notes for React development. Edit: I think the restrictions in the license itself are good cause for saying it shouldn't be called Open Source, fwiw.

thenoblesunfish 2y ago
You don't need to have the commit history to see "how it works". ML that works well does so in huge part due to the training data used. The leading models today aren't distinguished by the way they're trained, but what they're trained on.
- jdminhbg 2y ago
  I agree that you need training data to build AI from scratch, much like you need lots of really smart developers and a mailing list and servers and stuff to build the Linux kernel from scratch. But it's not like having the training data and training code will get you the same result, in the way something like open data in science is about replicating results.
  - frabcus 2y ago
    Reproducible builds of software binaries are a thing, but they aren't routinely done. Likewise training an AI is deterministic if you do it the same each time. And slight variances lead to similar capability models.
tempfile 2y ago
For the freedom to change to be effective, a user must be given the software in a form they can modify. Can you tweak an LLM once it's built? (I genuinely don't know the answer)
- jdminhbg 2y ago
  Yes, you can finetune Llama: https://llama.meta.com/docs/how-to-guides/fine-tuning/ https://llama.meta.com/docs/how-to-guides/fine-tuning/
diggan 2y ago
> I don't think not releasing the commit history of a project makes it not Open Source, Right, I'm not talking about the commit history, but rather that anyone (with means) should be able to produce the final artifact themselves, if they want. For weights like this, that requires at least the training script + the training data. Without that, it's very misleading to call the project Open Source, when only the result of the training is released. > What's important is you can download it, run it, modify it, and re-release it But I literally cannot download the project, build it and run it myself? I can only use the binaries (weights) provided by Meta. No one can modify how the artifact is produced, only modify the already produced artifact. That's like saying that Slack is Open Source because if I want to, I could patch the binary with a hex editor and add/remove things as I see fit? No one believes Slack should be called Open Source for that.
- jdminhbg 2y ago
  > Right, I'm not talking about the commit history, but rather that anyone (with means) should be able to produce the final artifact themselves, if they want. For weights like this, that requires at least the training script + the training data. You cannot produce the final artifact with the training script + data. Meta also cannot reproduce the current weights with the training script + data. You could produce some other set of weights that are just about as good, but it's not a deterministic process like compiling source code. > That's like saying that Slack is Open Source because if I want to, I could patch the binary with a hex editor and add/remove things as I see fit? No one believes Slack should be called Open Source for that. This analogy doesn't work because it's not like Meta can "patch" Llama any more than you can. They can only finetune it like everyone else, or produce an entirely different LLM by training from scratch like everyone else. The right to release your changes is another difference; if you patch Slack with a hex editor to do some useful thing, you're not allowed to release that changed Slack to others. If Slack lost their source code, went out of business, and released a decompiled version of the built product into the public domain, that would in some sense be "open source," even if not as good as something like Linux. LLMs though do not have a source code-like representation that is easily and deterministically modifiable like that, no matter who the owner is or what the license is.

thenoblesunfish 2y ago

You don't need to have the commit history to see "how it works". ML that works well does so in huge part due to the training data used. The leading models today aren't distinguished by the way they're trained, but what they're trained on.

jdminhbg 2y ago
I agree that you need training data to build AI from scratch, much like you need lots of really smart developers and a mailing list and servers and stuff to build the Linux kernel from scratch. But it's not like having the training data and training code will get you the same result, in the way something like open data in science is about replicating results.
- frabcus 2y ago
  Reproducible builds of software binaries are a thing, but they aren't routinely done. Likewise training an AI is deterministic if you do it the same each time. And slight variances lead to similar capability models.

tempfile 2y ago

For the freedom to change to be effective, a user must be given the software in a form they can modify. Can you tweak an LLM once it's built? (I genuinely don't know the answer)

jdminhbg 2y ago
Yes, you can finetune Llama: https://llama.meta.com/docs/how-to-guides/fine-tuning/ https://llama.meta.com/docs/how-to-guides/fine-tuning/

diggan 2y ago

> I don't think not releasing the commit history of a project makes it not Open Source, Right, I'm not talking about the commit history, but rather that anyone (with means) should be able to produce the final artifact themselves, if they want. For weights like this, that requires at least the training script + the training data. Without that, it's very misleading to call the project Open Source, when only the result of the training is released. > What's important is you can download it, run it, modify it, and re-release it But I literally cannot download the project, build it and run it myself? I can only use the binaries (weights) provided by Meta. No one can modify how the artifact is produced, only modify the already produced artifact. That's like saying that Slack is Open Source because if I want to, I could patch the binary with a hex editor and add/remove things as I see fit? No one believes Slack should be called Open Source for that.

jdminhbg 2y ago
> Right, I'm not talking about the commit history, but rather that anyone (with means) should be able to produce the final artifact themselves, if they want. For weights like this, that requires at least the training script + the training data. You cannot produce the final artifact with the training script + data. Meta also cannot reproduce the current weights with the training script + data. You could produce some other set of weights that are just about as good, but it's not a deterministic process like compiling source code. > That's like saying that Slack is Open Source because if I want to, I could patch the binary with a hex editor and add/remove things as I see fit? No one believes Slack should be called Open Source for that. This analogy doesn't work because it's not like Meta can "patch" Llama any more than you can. They can only finetune it like everyone else, or produce an entirely different LLM by training from scratch like everyone else. The right to release your changes is another difference; if you patch Slack with a hex editor to do some useful thing, you're not allowed to release that changed Slack to others. If Slack lost their source code, went out of business, and released a decompiled version of the built product into the public domain, that would in some sense be "open source," even if not as good as something like Linux. LLMs though do not have a source code-like representation that is easily and deterministically modifiable like that, no matter who the owner is or what the license is.