5 ms·

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 mod

by 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.)
- lern_too_spel 2y ago
  You shouldn't redefine a term if it doesn't apply. Just make a new term. This is how we ended up with the MiB vs. MB confusion where some systems incorrectly use the latter, making it effectively useless because the reader doesn't know if they really meant MB or actually meant MiB instead.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > shouldn't redefine a term if it doesn't apply. Just make a new term Maybe. But this isn't how language works. Particularly not English. A corollary of No true Scotsman [1] is the person administering that purity test rarely gets to define a Scotsman. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
    - lern_too_spel 2y ago
      That doesn't mean that we, the people who should know better, should contribute to making words lose meaning.
      - lostmsu 2y ago
        Why not?
        lern_too_spel 2y ago
        Because it makes communication harder. The whole point of words is to communicate. If somebody releases a model that is actually open source, they would have no way to describe it. Then the bastardized meaning of open source could creep into other contexts until it is entirely meaningless.
        lostmsu 2y ago
        Only in the short term. Then everyone gets used to the new status quo, and all is good, or even better because one doesn't have to make up entirely new terminology.
        lern_too_spel 2y ago
        In the long term, it's better to have new terminology, so we can differentiate between open source and open weight models. Open weight is unambiguous, and the meaning is clear.
        lostmsu 2y ago
        No, it is not. When you see a MIT-licensed repository, do you call a screenshot, icons or other image assets "open pictures"? That would be laughable. We don't need non-ambiguity outside of context. Second, the purism argument is just silly. Is GCC not open source because there's no LaTeX for IA-32 manual, and its x86 machine instruction generator is clearly distilled from it?
    - ghath 2y ago
      This is not an organic use of an altered meaning. The term is imposed by huge corporations who force it on their developers and everyone who wants to get funding in the Llama ecosystem. It has nothing to do with natural language evolution.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > an organic use of an altered meaning. The term is imposed by huge corporations who force it LLMs were entirely proprietary. In that context, Facebook put forward a foundational model one can run on their own hardware and called it open. At the time, nobody had defined what an open-source LLM was. People came out to say Llama wasn't open. But nobody rigorously proposed a practical definition. The OSI has started, but they're being honest about it being a draft. In the meantime, people are organically discussing open versus proprietary models in a variety of contexts, most of which aren't particularly concerned with the OSI's definitions.
    - _proofs 2y ago
      you are wildly conflating the difference between a naturally occurring evolution in a word's usage and meaning (ie: slang becomes canon becomes slang cycle), and intentionally misusing an existing, established meaning, and then pushing for that misuse (and misunderstanding) to become canon. one is pragmatic, ergonomic, and motivated by advancing relationships between communicating persons in a naturally occurring way because the common denominator is a quick race to mutual understanding. the other is manufactured, and not motivated by relation and advancing communication, but by how the shift in understanding benefits the one pushing for it, and often involves telling people how to think but is doing it through subversion.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > conflating the difference between a naturally occurring evolution in a word's usage and meaning (ie: slang becomes canon becomes slang cycle), and intentionally misusing an existing, established meaning Sort of. I'm claiming the meaning of open source when applied to AI is unsettled. There are guiding principles that seem to imply Llama is not open source. But merely pointing that out without offering a practical alternative definition almost guarantees that the intentionally-misused definition Facebook is promulgating becomes the accepted one.
        _proofs 2y ago
        fair point, and i think i can appreciate more where you are coming from now. however i do not think the alternatives need to be proposed at this moment in time because right now, the discussion is about holding people who intentionally reframe and misuse words accountable for their "double-speak" given the term's precedent. conventionally, and by historical collective understanding, it is not open source. i get you are attempting to highlight AI perhaps means this should be a definition reconsidered, but the irony here is the message itself is distorted due to the conflation, hence why consistency in language to me seems self-evident as a net good. there is most certainly a difference between naturally occurring (which our brains reeeally support in terms of language development and symbolic communication), and manufactured (and therefore pushing for a word, or more aptly, a perspective's adoption). i'd rather words manifest through a common need to reach mutual understanding as a means to relate to one another and this world, rather than having someone who stands to benefit from the change in definition, tell me what it means, and then expect me to just "agree", while they campaign around that and pretend it's the established definition (and not actually their own revised version). it'd be one thing if people who were throwing the term around so loosely would be transparent: "Hey, we know this isn't historically what everyone means by OSS, but... that's OSS your OSS this is OSS, everything is OSS instead a lot of these narratives are standing on the shoulders of the original definition and context of what it means to be OSS, and therefore the pedigree, implications (and whatever else for PR spin/influence), and simultaneously diluting what it means in the process as the definition gets further and further obfuscated by those influencing the change, and its pedigree is relied on as a distraction away from what is being done, or actually said.
- lrrna 2y ago
  It is not undefined. The wrong term is just repeated in marketing campaigns, by Meta developers and those building businesses on Llama until people believe it. They could use the more correct Open Weights (which is still a euphemism because of the EULA). But they do not, and they know perfectly well what they are doing. They are the ones responsible for these discussions, but they double down and blame the true OSS people.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > It is not undefined Of course it is. Look at this thread. Look at the policy discussions around regulating AI. Hell, look at the OSI's draft definition [1]. Pretending something is rigorously defined the way you want it to be doesn't make it so. [1] https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/open-source-ai-definition-draft-v-0-0-9 https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/open-source-ai-defini...
    - achrono 2y ago
      That's fallacious. It's a problem of popular use (and sales incentives), not of definition. "Open-source" represents a cluster of concepts but at the core of it there is a specific definition in spirit at least -- you can see the source for yourself, and compile it for yourself. If the source is not available, why would you want to call it open-source? Just call it something else. As simple as that.
      - halJordan 2y ago
        Definitions are not proscriptive. You cannot define a word and then coerce everyone to use that definition via your word. Definitions flow out of usage. The definition clarifies how the word is used and what people mean when they do use it. You are, in a very literal sense, doing what Orwell, et al was so desperately against by actively controlling how language is permitted to be used.
        autoexec 2y ago
        Definitions are very often proscriptive. Communication only works when people are able to understand the language being used. Imagine how well networks would function if we didn't have documented protocols that define what things mean and how they should be understood. Nobody can "force" someone else to use the correct definitions of words, but when people disregard their established meanings they risk communication breaking down and the confusion and misunderstandings that follow. If I went around speaking nonsense or making up my own invented definitions for established words I shouldn't expect to be understood and others would be perfectly right to correct me or ask that I stick to using the well understood and documented meaning of words if I expect to have a productive conversation. It's also perfectly fair to call out people who twist the meaning of words intentionally so that they can lie, mislead, and manipulate others. When it comes to products, companies can't just say "Words can mean anything I say they do! There are no rules!" to get away with false advertising.
tbrownaw 2y ago
> The user needs the complete capability to reproduce what is distributed. GPLv3 defines "source code" as the preferred form for making changes. For most normal software that is identical to what you'd use to recreate it... but the way to make changes to an LLM isn't to rebuild it, but is to run fine-tuning on it.

by lrrna 2y ago

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.)

lern_too_spel 2y ago
You shouldn't redefine a term if it doesn't apply. Just make a new term. This is how we ended up with the MiB vs. MB confusion where some systems incorrectly use the latter, making it effectively useless because the reader doesn't know if they really meant MB or actually meant MiB instead.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > shouldn't redefine a term if it doesn't apply. Just make a new term Maybe. But this isn't how language works. Particularly not English. A corollary of No true Scotsman [1] is the person administering that purity test rarely gets to define a Scotsman. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
  - lern_too_spel 2y ago
    That doesn't mean that we, the people who should know better, should contribute to making words lose meaning.
    - lostmsu 2y ago
      Why not?
      - lern_too_spel 2y ago
        Because it makes communication harder. The whole point of words is to communicate. If somebody releases a model that is actually open source, they would have no way to describe it. Then the bastardized meaning of open source could creep into other contexts until it is entirely meaningless.
        lostmsu 2y ago
        Only in the short term. Then everyone gets used to the new status quo, and all is good, or even better because one doesn't have to make up entirely new terminology.
        lern_too_spel 2y ago
        In the long term, it's better to have new terminology, so we can differentiate between open source and open weight models. Open weight is unambiguous, and the meaning is clear.
        lostmsu 2y ago
        No, it is not. When you see a MIT-licensed repository, do you call a screenshot, icons or other image assets "open pictures"? That would be laughable. We don't need non-ambiguity outside of context. Second, the purism argument is just silly. Is GCC not open source because there's no LaTeX for IA-32 manual, and its x86 machine instruction generator is clearly distilled from it?
  - ghath 2y ago
    This is not an organic use of an altered meaning. The term is imposed by huge corporations who force it on their developers and everyone who wants to get funding in the Llama ecosystem. It has nothing to do with natural language evolution.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > an organic use of an altered meaning. The term is imposed by huge corporations who force it LLMs were entirely proprietary. In that context, Facebook put forward a foundational model one can run on their own hardware and called it open. At the time, nobody had defined what an open-source LLM was. People came out to say Llama wasn't open. But nobody rigorously proposed a practical definition. The OSI has started, but they're being honest about it being a draft. In the meantime, people are organically discussing open versus proprietary models in a variety of contexts, most of which aren't particularly concerned with the OSI's definitions.
  - _proofs 2y ago
    you are wildly conflating the difference between a naturally occurring evolution in a word's usage and meaning (ie: slang becomes canon becomes slang cycle), and intentionally misusing an existing, established meaning, and then pushing for that misuse (and misunderstanding) to become canon. one is pragmatic, ergonomic, and motivated by advancing relationships between communicating persons in a naturally occurring way because the common denominator is a quick race to mutual understanding. the other is manufactured, and not motivated by relation and advancing communication, but by how the shift in understanding benefits the one pushing for it, and often involves telling people how to think but is doing it through subversion.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > conflating the difference between a naturally occurring evolution in a word's usage and meaning (ie: slang becomes canon becomes slang cycle), and intentionally misusing an existing, established meaning Sort of. I'm claiming the meaning of open source when applied to AI is unsettled. There are guiding principles that seem to imply Llama is not open source. But merely pointing that out without offering a practical alternative definition almost guarantees that the intentionally-misused definition Facebook is promulgating becomes the accepted one.
      - _proofs 2y ago
        fair point, and i think i can appreciate more where you are coming from now. however i do not think the alternatives need to be proposed at this moment in time because right now, the discussion is about holding people who intentionally reframe and misuse words accountable for their "double-speak" given the term's precedent. conventionally, and by historical collective understanding, it is not open source. i get you are attempting to highlight AI perhaps means this should be a definition reconsidered, but the irony here is the message itself is distorted due to the conflation, hence why consistency in language to me seems self-evident as a net good. there is most certainly a difference between naturally occurring (which our brains reeeally support in terms of language development and symbolic communication), and manufactured (and therefore pushing for a word, or more aptly, a perspective's adoption). i'd rather words manifest through a common need to reach mutual understanding as a means to relate to one another and this world, rather than having someone who stands to benefit from the change in definition, tell me what it means, and then expect me to just "agree", while they campaign around that and pretend it's the established definition (and not actually their own revised version). it'd be one thing if people who were throwing the term around so loosely would be transparent: "Hey, we know this isn't historically what everyone means by OSS, but... that's OSS your OSS this is OSS, everything is OSS instead a lot of these narratives are standing on the shoulders of the original definition and context of what it means to be OSS, and therefore the pedigree, implications (and whatever else for PR spin/influence), and simultaneously diluting what it means in the process as the definition gets further and further obfuscated by those influencing the change, and its pedigree is relied on as a distraction away from what is being done, or actually said.
lrrna 2y ago
It is not undefined. The wrong term is just repeated in marketing campaigns, by Meta developers and those building businesses on Llama until people believe it. They could use the more correct Open Weights (which is still a euphemism because of the EULA). But they do not, and they know perfectly well what they are doing. They are the ones responsible for these discussions, but they double down and blame the true OSS people.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > It is not undefined Of course it is. Look at this thread. Look at the policy discussions around regulating AI. Hell, look at the OSI's draft definition [1]. Pretending something is rigorously defined the way you want it to be doesn't make it so. [1] https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/open-source-ai-definition-draft-v-0-0-9 https://opensource.org/deepdive/drafts/open-source-ai-defini...
  - achrono 2y ago
    That's fallacious. It's a problem of popular use (and sales incentives), not of definition. "Open-source" represents a cluster of concepts but at the core of it there is a specific definition in spirit at least -- you can see the source for yourself, and compile it for yourself. If the source is not available, why would you want to call it open-source? Just call it something else. As simple as that.
    - halJordan 2y ago
      Definitions are not proscriptive. You cannot define a word and then coerce everyone to use that definition via your word. Definitions flow out of usage. The definition clarifies how the word is used and what people mean when they do use it. You are, in a very literal sense, doing what Orwell, et al was so desperately against by actively controlling how language is permitted to be used.
      - autoexec 2y ago
        Definitions are very often proscriptive. Communication only works when people are able to understand the language being used. Imagine how well networks would function if we didn't have documented protocols that define what things mean and how they should be understood. Nobody can "force" someone else to use the correct definitions of words, but when people disregard their established meanings they risk communication breaking down and the confusion and misunderstandings that follow. If I went around speaking nonsense or making up my own invented definitions for established words I shouldn't expect to be understood and others would be perfectly right to correct me or ask that I stick to using the well understood and documented meaning of words if I expect to have a productive conversation. It's also perfectly fair to call out people who twist the meaning of words intentionally so that they can lie, mislead, and manipulate others. When it comes to products, companies can't just say "Words can mean anything I say they do! There are no rules!" to get away with false advertising.

tbrownaw 2y ago

> The user needs the complete capability to reproduce what is distributed. GPLv3 defines "source code" as the preferred form for making changes. For most normal software that is identical to what you'd use to recreate it... but the way to make changes to an LLM isn't to rebuild it, but is to run fine-tuning on it.