8 ms·

Llama isn't open source at all. Stop using that phrase for your product featuring even an EULA.

by mkesper 2y ago

ekianjo 2y ago
open source is so ambiguous its a useless expression at this stage. At least FOSS is less problematic.
- kzrdude 2y ago
  https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
  - ekianjo 2y ago
    so what? nobody cares about such definitions since you can see the expression is used to mean everything
- benterix 2y ago
  A few decades ago an organization was founded specifically to address statements such as this one. That's why some early Microsoft attempts at competing with OS had to be called "shared source", not "open source".
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - CamperBob2 2y ago
    Unfortunately they didn't do a competent job at addressing it, which would have involved trademarking the phrase. As a result, "Open Source" means whatever you, I, Meta, or anyone else wants it to mean.
riedel 2y ago
This a hard stance if you talk just about the code (not the model weights). The llama community licence is a bit weird and probably not an OSI compliant licence, but close. Regarding weights this is different, but to me it is actually difficult to understand still now to aplly copyright law here. Having said that one nicht und erstand why certain stupid looking clauses went into the code licence. If we do not understand copyright of model weights and do not have court rulings in the use oft training data und er different copyright regimes (US and EU), I would not care too much. We are still in the Wild West.
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago
  “Close” is not good enough for using a term with a very specific meaning. OSI = open source, everything else is source-available (which its arguable that either even applies, because the source of the weights, the dataset, is not available). I agree that for Llama, things are weird and they want to cover their bases, and that its better than nothing, but the specific use of “open source” is a long-running corporate dilution of what open source really means and I am tired of it.
  - riedel 2y ago
    Funny thing is that what they implemented in that licence is kind of a copy left thingy. Because you can use llama to train other models, but you would have to declare them derivative and thus keep the licence terms. (Not saying this is OSI compliant, but at least a IMHO a new kind of beast)
- segmondy 2y ago
  Having access to a weight doesn't make it open. Else you can make the argument that Microsoft Word is open source because you have access to the binary.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    Indeed, weights are literally binary data. Not human-readable!
    - boroboro4 2y ago
      The access to modify (uptrain/finetune) these weights is the same between Meta & others, unlike with Word (where Microsoft has an advantage because they have code and can recompile it). I think this is the only thing which matters in practical terms.
      - HPsquared 2y ago
        Lots of binary executables and libraries can be customised too. That doesn't make them open-source.
Der_Einzige 2y ago
Why should anyone care about following a license? Llama did not license its training data. It’s almost impossible to prove a particular LLM was used to generate any particular text, and there’s likely a bunch of illegal content within the dataset used to train the model (as is the case for most other LLMs)… So why should I care about following a license? They have no mechanism to enforce it. They have no mechanism to detect when it’s being violated. They themselves indicated hostilities to other licenses, so why not ignore it?
- OKRainbowKid 2y ago
  Thousands of lawyers and billions to spend.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    Again, how do you reliably prove that I used your model if I do a bunch of tricks to "hide" this? i.e. high temperature, exotic samplers (i.e. typicality sampling), using lora/soft prompts/representation engineering, using it as part of a chain on top of other AI, etc I don't care if every lawyer on earth is hired by Meta. Show me evidence that any particular LLM can be trivially fingerprinted based on its outputs. No, that "red token green token" paper on watermarking (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.10226 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.10226) is not an example of this because of how trivial it is to defeat. Edit: I can't reply to the comment saying "Subpoena" but this commentator seems to think that using any LLM at all is grounds for a court to issue a Subpoena requiring you to disclose which LLM you're using. If this actually happened, you'd see a massive chilling effect. Also, what stops someone from silently replacing the model with a non infringing one the moment someone starts asking questions? I'm pretty sure that most courts aren't capable of getting expert testimony which is good enough to deduce that I silently swapped out my blarg_3.1 model which was made using a 1/3 llama3 merge with something else with gloop_1.5 which is no longer infringing. Like seriously, I again ask, given the idea of courts with warrants and Subpoena's, why should I care about meta's licensing? Edit2: If you're afraid of an employee leaking this info, don't tell your employees. Good thing clever model merging leaves no traces if you delete metadata!
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Llama isn't open source at all. Stop using that phrase for your product featuring even an EULA We don't have a commonly-accepted definition of what open source means for LLMs. Just negating Facebook's doesn't advance the discussion. The open-source community is fractured between those who want it to mean weights available (Facebook); weights and transformer available; weights with no use restrictions (I think this is you); and weights, transformer and training data with no restrictions (obviously not workable, not even the OSI's proposed definition goes that far [1]). In a world where the only LLMs are proprietary or Llama and the open-source community either remains fractured or chooses an unworkable ask, the latter wil define how the term is used. [1] https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/open-source-ai-definition-draft-v-0-0-9 https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/open-source-ai-defini...
- j_maffe 2y ago
  The Llama 3.1 transformer is available. But it does have some minor use restrictions, yes.
  - ein0p 2y ago
    The weight releases for LLMs are equivalent to binary releases for software. The “source code” here is the dataset, which is not disclosed.
- lrrna 2y ago
  We have that definition. The user needs the complete capability to reproduce what is distributed. Which means training data and the source used to train the model. If you distribute the output of bison (say, foo.c) and not the foo.y sources, you would get pushback. Then there is the EULA which makes it closed source right from the start.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Which means training data and the source used to train the model This makes an LLM (emphasis on large) that is open source per this definition legally impossible. In every jurisdiction of consequence. People like the term open source. It will get used. It is currently undefined. If the choice is an impractical definition and a bad one, we'll get stuck with the bad one. (See: hacker v cracker, crypto(currency) v crypto(graphy), et cetera.)
jrm4 2y ago
Obligatory "Stallman Was Right." Once again: for those who are new here. There is Free Software, which has a usefully strict definition. And there is Open Source, the business-friendly -- but consequently looser -- other thing. You can like one or both, they both have advantages and drawbacks. But you cannot insist that "Open Source" has a very strict definition. It just doesn't. That's why the whole Free Software thing is needed, and IMHO, more important.
- j_maffe 2y ago
  I agree except for your opinion in the end. But I know you're not alone in this opinion and it has been discussed to death. At this point it's more political than anything else in CS.
  - jrm4 2y ago
    The age of an opinion is not in ANY WAY an indicator of how important it is, nor does reducing it to being "political." Statements like this remind me that I really need to KEEP GOING with this.
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  Open Source has every bit as strict of a definition as Free Software. Open Source as a term was coined and popularized by the OSI. The term may have occasionally been used in different contexts prior to the OSI, but it was never commonly applied to software before that. One could argue that the OSI should have gotten a trademark on the term. But the FSF doesn't have a trademark on the term "free Software" either, so the terms have approximately equal legal protections. Meta using the term "open source" to apply to their model data when their license isn't an open source license is dishonest at best.
  - jrm4 2y ago
    I think I agree that they shouldn't use "open source," but again, this confusion highlights that you have to put in work when it comes to this topic. Free Software has the GPL, and all its related, healthy controversy. It's not perfectly clear, but it's far more battle-tested than the much more nebulous "Open source." People who like "free software" put in work, and better understood that, to some extent, you can't have your cake and eat it too. "Open Source" is much more about a whole lot (to me, naive) wishful thinking. (The OSI is a bunch of companies in a trenchcoat, the creators of the GPL were more principled.)
insane_dreamer 2y ago
The OSI doesn't have a monopoly on the definition of the words "open source". There is "open source as per the OSI Open Source Definition" and there are other interpretations.
- intellectronica 2y ago
  Right, but if your "open source" package doesn't include .... the source, then you need some other definition.
JackYoustra 2y ago
Fwiw Meta, under oath in congressional session, called Llama not open-source.
- KolmogorovComp 2y ago
  source and context? Would be interested to know more about this
  - JackYoustra 2y ago
    oof, I can't find it. Someone trustworthy told me this, haven't seen it myself with my own eyes.

Llama isn't open source at all. Stop using that phrase for your product featuring even an EULA.

ekianjo 2y ago

open source is so ambiguous its a useless expression at this stage. At least FOSS is less problematic.

kzrdude 2y ago
https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
- ekianjo 2y ago
  so what? nobody cares about such definitions since you can see the expression is used to mean everything
benterix 2y ago
A few decades ago an organization was founded specifically to address statements such as this one. That's why some early Microsoft attempts at competing with OS had to be called "shared source", not "open source".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  Unfortunately they didn't do a competent job at addressing it, which would have involved trademarking the phrase. As a result, "Open Source" means whatever you, I, Meta, or anyone else wants it to mean.

riedel 2y ago

This a hard stance if you talk just about the code (not the model weights). The llama community licence is a bit weird and probably not an OSI compliant licence, but close. Regarding weights this is different, but to me it is actually difficult to understand still now to aplly copyright law here. Having said that one nicht und erstand why certain stupid looking clauses went into the code licence. If we do not understand copyright of model weights and do not have court rulings in the use oft training data und er different copyright regimes (US and EU), I would not care too much. We are still in the Wild West.

tourmalinetaco 2y ago
“Close” is not good enough for using a term with a very specific meaning. OSI = open source, everything else is source-available (which its arguable that either even applies, because the source of the weights, the dataset, is not available). I agree that for Llama, things are weird and they want to cover their bases, and that its better than nothing, but the specific use of “open source” is a long-running corporate dilution of what open source really means and I am tired of it.
- riedel 2y ago
  Funny thing is that what they implemented in that licence is kind of a copy left thingy. Because you can use llama to train other models, but you would have to declare them derivative and thus keep the licence terms. (Not saying this is OSI compliant, but at least a IMHO a new kind of beast)
segmondy 2y ago
Having access to a weight doesn't make it open. Else you can make the argument that Microsoft Word is open source because you have access to the binary.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Indeed, weights are literally binary data. Not human-readable!
  - boroboro4 2y ago
    The access to modify (uptrain/finetune) these weights is the same between Meta & others, unlike with Word (where Microsoft has an advantage because they have code and can recompile it). I think this is the only thing which matters in practical terms.
    - HPsquared 2y ago
      Lots of binary executables and libraries can be customised too. That doesn't make them open-source.

Der_Einzige 2y ago

Why should anyone care about following a license? Llama did not license its training data. It’s almost impossible to prove a particular LLM was used to generate any particular text, and there’s likely a bunch of illegal content within the dataset used to train the model (as is the case for most other LLMs)… So why should I care about following a license? They have no mechanism to enforce it. They have no mechanism to detect when it’s being violated. They themselves indicated hostilities to other licenses, so why not ignore it?

OKRainbowKid 2y ago
Thousands of lawyers and billions to spend.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  Again, how do you reliably prove that I used your model if I do a bunch of tricks to "hide" this? i.e. high temperature, exotic samplers (i.e. typicality sampling), using lora/soft prompts/representation engineering, using it as part of a chain on top of other AI, etc I don't care if every lawyer on earth is hired by Meta. Show me evidence that any particular LLM can be trivially fingerprinted based on its outputs. No, that "red token green token" paper on watermarking (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.10226 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.10226) is not an example of this because of how trivial it is to defeat. Edit: I can't reply to the comment saying "Subpoena" but this commentator seems to think that using any LLM at all is grounds for a court to issue a Subpoena requiring you to disclose which LLM you're using. If this actually happened, you'd see a massive chilling effect. Also, what stops someone from silently replacing the model with a non infringing one the moment someone starts asking questions? I'm pretty sure that most courts aren't capable of getting expert testimony which is good enough to deduce that I silently swapped out my blarg_3.1 model which was made using a 1/3 llama3 merge with something else with gloop_1.5 which is no longer infringing. Like seriously, I again ask, given the idea of courts with warrants and Subpoena's, why should I care about meta's licensing? Edit2: If you're afraid of an employee leaking this info, don't tell your employees. Good thing clever model merging leaves no traces if you delete metadata!

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Llama isn't open source at all. Stop using that phrase for your product featuring even an EULA We don't have a commonly-accepted definition of what open source means for LLMs. Just negating Facebook's doesn't advance the discussion. The open-source community is fractured between those who want it to mean weights available (Facebook); weights and transformer available; weights with no use restrictions (I think this is you); and weights, transformer and training data with no restrictions (obviously not workable, not even the OSI's proposed definition goes that far [1]). In a world where the only LLMs are proprietary or Llama and the open-source community either remains fractured or chooses an unworkable ask, the latter wil define how the term is used. [1] https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/open-source-ai-definition-draft-v-0-0-9 https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/open-source-ai-defini...

j_maffe 2y ago
The Llama 3.1 transformer is available. But it does have some minor use restrictions, yes.
- ein0p 2y ago
  The weight releases for LLMs are equivalent to binary releases for software. The “source code” here is the dataset, which is not disclosed.
lrrna 2y ago
We have that definition. The user needs the complete capability to reproduce what is distributed. Which means training data and the source used to train the model. If you distribute the output of bison (say, foo.c) and not the foo.y sources, you would get pushback. Then there is the EULA which makes it closed source right from the start.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Which means training data and the source used to train the model This makes an LLM (emphasis on large) that is open source per this definition legally impossible. In every jurisdiction of consequence. People like the term open source. It will get used. It is currently undefined. If the choice is an impractical definition and a bad one, we'll get stuck with the bad one. (See: hacker v cracker, crypto(currency) v crypto(graphy), et cetera.)

jrm4 2y ago

Obligatory "Stallman Was Right." Once again: for those who are new here. There is Free Software, which has a usefully strict definition. And there is Open Source, the business-friendly -- but consequently looser -- other thing. You can like one or both, they both have advantages and drawbacks. But you cannot insist that "Open Source" has a very strict definition. It just doesn't. That's why the whole Free Software thing is needed, and IMHO, more important.

j_maffe 2y ago
I agree except for your opinion in the end. But I know you're not alone in this opinion and it has been discussed to death. At this point it's more political than anything else in CS.
- jrm4 2y ago
  The age of an opinion is not in ANY WAY an indicator of how important it is, nor does reducing it to being "political." Statements like this remind me that I really need to KEEP GOING with this.
ensignavenger 2y ago
Open Source has every bit as strict of a definition as Free Software. Open Source as a term was coined and popularized by the OSI. The term may have occasionally been used in different contexts prior to the OSI, but it was never commonly applied to software before that. One could argue that the OSI should have gotten a trademark on the term. But the FSF doesn't have a trademark on the term "free Software" either, so the terms have approximately equal legal protections. Meta using the term "open source" to apply to their model data when their license isn't an open source license is dishonest at best.
- jrm4 2y ago
  I think I agree that they shouldn't use "open source," but again, this confusion highlights that you have to put in work when it comes to this topic. Free Software has the GPL, and all its related, healthy controversy. It's not perfectly clear, but it's far more battle-tested than the much more nebulous "Open source." People who like "free software" put in work, and better understood that, to some extent, you can't have your cake and eat it too. "Open Source" is much more about a whole lot (to me, naive) wishful thinking. (The OSI is a bunch of companies in a trenchcoat, the creators of the GPL were more principled.)

insane_dreamer 2y ago

The OSI doesn't have a monopoly on the definition of the words "open source". There is "open source as per the OSI Open Source Definition" and there are other interpretations.

intellectronica 2y ago
Right, but if your "open source" package doesn't include .... the source, then you need some other definition.

JackYoustra 2y ago

Fwiw Meta, under oath in congressional session, called Llama not open-source.

KolmogorovComp 2y ago
source and context? Would be interested to know more about this
- JackYoustra 2y ago
  oof, I can't find it. Someone trustworthy told me this, haven't seen it myself with my own eyes.