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Thanks for reminding people of this. Open source means two things in spirit: (a) You have everything you need to be able to re-create something, and at any st

by sho_hn 2y ago

Thanks for reminding people of this. Open source means two things in spirit: (a) You have everything you need to be able to re-create something, and at any step of the process change it. (b) You have broad permissions how to put the result to use. The "open source" models from both Meta so far fail either both or one of these checks (Meta's fails both). We should resist the dilution of the term open source to the point where it means nothing useful.

jprete 2y ago
I think people are looking for the term "freeware" although the connotations don't match.
- sho_hn 2y ago
  Agreed, but the "connotations don't match" is mostly because the folks who chose to call it open source wanted the marketing benefits of doing so. Otherwise it'd match pretty well.
HDThoreaun 2y ago
Open source means the source code is freely available. It’s in the name.
- idle_zealot 2y ago
  The source being available means the code is "source available." Open implies more rights.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
KPGv2 2y ago
At the risk of being called rms, no, that's not what open source means. Open source just means you have access to the source code. Which you do. Code that is open source but restrictively licensed is still open source. That's why terms like "libre" were born to describe certain kinds of software. And that's what you're describing. This is a debate that started, like, twenty years ago or something when we started getting big code projects that were open source but encumbered by patents so that they couldn't be redistributed, but could still be read and modified for internal use.
- sho_hn 2y ago
  > Open source just means you have access to the source code. Which you do. No, they also fail even that test. Neither Meta nor DeepSeek have released the source code of their training pipeline or anything like that. There's very little literal "source code" in any of these releases at all. What you can get from them is the model weights, which for the purpose of this discussion, is very similar to compiler binary executable output you cannot easily reverse, which is what open source seeks to address. In the case of Meta, this comes with additional usage limitations on how you may put them to use. As a sibling comment said, this is basically "freeware" (with asterisks) but has nothing to do with open source, either according to RMS or OSI. > This is a debate that started, like, twenty years ago For the record, I do appreciate the distinction. This isn't meant as an argument from authority at all, but I've been an active open source (and free software) developer for close to those 20 years, am on the board of one of the larger FOSS orgs, and most households have a few copies of FOSS code I've written running. It's also why I care! :-)
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > they also fail even that test. Neither Meta nor DeepSeek have released the source code of the This debate is over and makes the open source community look silly. Open model and weights is, practically speaking, open source for LLMs. I have tremendous respect for FOSS and those who build and maintain it. But arguing for open training data means only toy models can practically exist. As a result, the practical definition will prevail. And if the only people putting forward a practical definition are Meta et al, this is what you get: source available.
    - sho_hn 2y ago
      I'm not arguing for open training data BTW, and the problem is exactly this sort of myopic focus on the concerns of the AI community and the benefits of open-washing marketing. Completely, fully breaking the meaning of the term "open source" is causing collateral damage outside the AI topic, that's where it really hurts. The open source principle is still useful and necessary, and we need words to communicate about it and raise correct expectations and apply correct standards. As a dev you very likely don't want to live in a tech environment where we regress on this. It's not "source available" either. There's no source. It's freeware. "I can download it and run it" isn't open source. I'm actually not too worried that people won't eventually re-discover the same needs that open source originally discovered, but it's pretty lame if we lose a whole bunch of time and effort to re-learn some lessons yet again.

by sho_hn 2y ago

jprete 2y ago

I think people are looking for the term "freeware" although the connotations don't match.

sho_hn 2y ago
Agreed, but the "connotations don't match" is mostly because the folks who chose to call it open source wanted the marketing benefits of doing so. Otherwise it'd match pretty well.

HDThoreaun 2y ago

Open source means the source code is freely available. It’s in the name.

idle_zealot 2y ago
The source being available means the code is "source available." Open implies more rights.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

KPGv2 2y ago

At the risk of being called rms, no, that's not what open source means. Open source just means you have access to the source code. Which you do. Code that is open source but restrictively licensed is still open source. That's why terms like "libre" were born to describe certain kinds of software. And that's what you're describing. This is a debate that started, like, twenty years ago or something when we started getting big code projects that were open source but encumbered by patents so that they couldn't be redistributed, but could still be read and modified for internal use.

sho_hn 2y ago
> Open source just means you have access to the source code. Which you do. No, they also fail even that test. Neither Meta nor DeepSeek have released the source code of their training pipeline or anything like that. There's very little literal "source code" in any of these releases at all. What you can get from them is the model weights, which for the purpose of this discussion, is very similar to compiler binary executable output you cannot easily reverse, which is what open source seeks to address. In the case of Meta, this comes with additional usage limitations on how you may put them to use. As a sibling comment said, this is basically "freeware" (with asterisks) but has nothing to do with open source, either according to RMS or OSI. > This is a debate that started, like, twenty years ago For the record, I do appreciate the distinction. This isn't meant as an argument from authority at all, but I've been an active open source (and free software) developer for close to those 20 years, am on the board of one of the larger FOSS orgs, and most households have a few copies of FOSS code I've written running. It's also why I care! :-)
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > they also fail even that test. Neither Meta nor DeepSeek have released the source code of the This debate is over and makes the open source community look silly. Open model and weights is, practically speaking, open source for LLMs. I have tremendous respect for FOSS and those who build and maintain it. But arguing for open training data means only toy models can practically exist. As a result, the practical definition will prevail. And if the only people putting forward a practical definition are Meta et al, this is what you get: source available.
  - sho_hn 2y ago
    I'm not arguing for open training data BTW, and the problem is exactly this sort of myopic focus on the concerns of the AI community and the benefits of open-washing marketing. Completely, fully breaking the meaning of the term "open source" is causing collateral damage outside the AI topic, that's where it really hurts. The open source principle is still useful and necessary, and we need words to communicate about it and raise correct expectations and apply correct standards. As a dev you very likely don't want to live in a tech environment where we regress on this. It's not "source available" either. There's no source. It's freeware. "I can download it and run it" isn't open source. I'm actually not too worried that people won't eventually re-discover the same needs that open source originally discovered, but it's pretty lame if we lose a whole bunch of time and effort to re-learn some lessons yet again.