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This is the type of thing that only people who get in internet arguments about MIT vs BSD care about. Is the llama license open source as defined by the OSD? No

This is the type of thing that only people who get in internet arguments about MIT vs BSD care about. Is the llama license open source as defined by the OSD? No. But for the majority of people, they don't care. For all intents and purposes, it is open source for them. All of this is to say that I don't fault the author for just calling it open source.

selfhoster11 2y ago
Except that Llama 4's license restricts you from using its multimodal features in the European union, and the Llama 3 license restricted using the model output to augment the training of other models (distillation). Both are important use cases. It very much isn't an academic exercise. It has a real impact on what you can (legally) do with a model. With a model licensed using MIT, you know what you are getting. You know you can modify it. You know you can use it for any purpose whatsoever, including ones the corporation that built it dislikes. Using the MIT license is "no ace up my sleeve" licensing - there are no gotchas that will come and bite you later.
- diggan 2y ago
  > Except that Llama 4's license restricts you from using its multimodal features in the European union The EU restrictions were added in 3.2's Use Policy, while 3.1 License introduced the restrictions on using model output for training other models. I've collated the changes here: https://notes.victor.earth/how-llamas-licenses-have-evolved-over-time/ https://notes.victor.earth/how-llamas-licenses-have-evolved-... Besides that, I agree with what you're saying.
  - selfhoster11 2y ago
    I appreciate the correction. I've not been paying much attention to Llama licensing after the first Llama 3 models came out.
- pabs3 2y ago
  Model output isn't copyrightable, and I would be surprised if them models themselves were copyrightable too, which means the licenses are meaningless.
jraph 2y ago
> Is the llama license open source as defined by the OSD? No No indeed, full stop. I think that If one needs to express some idea, one should use clear and exact terms for this. I don't think "open source", which is widely recognized with a specific meaning, should be twisted. The shared definition of "open source" is the one defined by the OSD. > But for the majority of people, they don't care Maybe they should, but even if they don't, it's not an excuse. Especially in an article about the very topic at hand. The open source definition seems constantly attacked for some reason, and that blurs the meaning of everything in the ecosystem. We need to fight back against this. If you care about open source, how are you supposed to spread the word if "open source" has lost its meaning? It also matters because if one thinks that open source is the better thing to do, but everything and their dog is called open source, then everything is good and we don't need to bother with the principles anymore (not unlike the Overton window). Now, in this case for this article, it's just an example that doesn't work, it's not something fundamentally wrong about it. I'm just pushing back on the idea that it doesn't matter if we misuse "open source" a bit which seems to spread fast these days.
pabs3 2y ago
I think you mean MIT vs GPL? MIT & BSD are almost equivalent.

selfhoster11 2y ago

Except that Llama 4's license restricts you from using its multimodal features in the European union, and the Llama 3 license restricted using the model output to augment the training of other models (distillation). Both are important use cases. It very much isn't an academic exercise. It has a real impact on what you can (legally) do with a model. With a model licensed using MIT, you know what you are getting. You know you can modify it. You know you can use it for any purpose whatsoever, including ones the corporation that built it dislikes. Using the MIT license is "no ace up my sleeve" licensing - there are no gotchas that will come and bite you later.

diggan 2y ago
> Except that Llama 4's license restricts you from using its multimodal features in the European union The EU restrictions were added in 3.2's Use Policy, while 3.1 License introduced the restrictions on using model output for training other models. I've collated the changes here: https://notes.victor.earth/how-llamas-licenses-have-evolved-over-time/ https://notes.victor.earth/how-llamas-licenses-have-evolved-... Besides that, I agree with what you're saying.
- selfhoster11 2y ago
  I appreciate the correction. I've not been paying much attention to Llama licensing after the first Llama 3 models came out.
pabs3 2y ago
Model output isn't copyrightable, and I would be surprised if them models themselves were copyrightable too, which means the licenses are meaningless.

jraph 2y ago

> Is the llama license open source as defined by the OSD? No No indeed, full stop. I think that If one needs to express some idea, one should use clear and exact terms for this. I don't think "open source", which is widely recognized with a specific meaning, should be twisted. The shared definition of "open source" is the one defined by the OSD. > But for the majority of people, they don't care Maybe they should, but even if they don't, it's not an excuse. Especially in an article about the very topic at hand. The open source definition seems constantly attacked for some reason, and that blurs the meaning of everything in the ecosystem. We need to fight back against this. If you care about open source, how are you supposed to spread the word if "open source" has lost its meaning? It also matters because if one thinks that open source is the better thing to do, but everything and their dog is called open source, then everything is good and we don't need to bother with the principles anymore (not unlike the Overton window). Now, in this case for this article, it's just an example that doesn't work, it's not something fundamentally wrong about it. I'm just pushing back on the idea that it doesn't matter if we misuse "open source" a bit which seems to spread fast these days.

pabs3 2y ago

I think you mean MIT vs GPL? MIT & BSD are almost equivalent.