[observationist]

How exactly is it the "most open model" ?

It's more like a masterclass in corporate doublespeak. Google’s "transparency" is as clear as mud, with pretraining details thinner than their privacy protections. Diving into Google’s tech means auctioning off your privacy (and your users' privacy) to the highest bidder.

Their "open source" embrace is more of a chokehold, with their tech biases and monopolistic strategies baked into every line of code. Think of it as Google's way of marking territory - every developer is a fire hydrant.

These megacorps aren’t benevolent patrons of open source; they're self-serving giants cloaking power grabs under the guise of "progress".

Use these products at your own risk. If these companies wanted to engage in good faith, they'd use Apache or MIT licensing and grant people the agency and responsibility for their own use and development of software. Their licenses are designed to mitigate liability, handcuff potential competitors, and eke every last drop of value from users, with informed consent frequently being an optional afterthought.

That doesn't even get into the Goodharting of metrics and actual performance of the models; I highly doubt they're anywhere near as good as Mistral.

The UAE is a notoriously illiberal authoritarian state, yet even they have released AI models far more free and open than Google or Meta. https://huggingface.co/tiiuae/falcon-40b/blob/main/README.md

If it’s not Apache or MIT, (or even some flavor of GPL,) it’s not open source; it’s a trojan horse. These "free" models come at the cost of your privacy and freedoms.

These models aren't Open or Open Access or Free unless you perform the requisite mental gymnastics cooked up by their marketing and legal teams. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Gemma is doubleplusgood.

[stale2002]

You said a lot of nothing without actually saying specifically what the problem is with the recent license.

Maybe the license is fine for almost all usecases and the limitations are small?

For example, you complained about metas license, but basically everyone uses those models and is completely ignoring it. The weights are out there, and nobody cares what the fine print says.

Maybe if you are a FAANG, company, meta might sue. But everyone else is getting away with it completely.

[observationist]

I specifically called out the claims of openness and doublespeak being used.

Google is making claims that are untrue. Meta makes similar false claims. The fact that unspecified "other" people are ignoring the licenses isn't relevant. Good for them. Good luck making anything real or investing any important level of time or money under those misconceptions.

"They haven't sued yet" isn't some sort of validation. Anyone building an actual product that makes actual money that comes to the attention of Meta or Google will be sued into oblivion, their IP taken, and repurposed or buried. These tech companies have never behaved otherwise, and to think that they will is willfully oblivious.

They don't deserve the benefit of the doubt, and should be called out for using deceitful language, making comparisons between their performative "openness" and actual, real, open source software. Mistral and other players have released actually open models and software. They're good faith actors, and if you're going to build a product requiring a custom model, the smart money is on Mistral.

FAANG are utilizing gotcha licenses and muddying the waters to their own benefit, not as a contribution to the public good. Building anything on the assumption that Meta or Google won't sue is beyond foolish. They're just as open as "Open"AI, which is to say not open at all.

[stale2002]

> Anyone building an actual product that makes actual money that comes to the attention of Meta or Google will be sued into oblivion

No they won't and they haven't.

Almost the entire startup scene is completely ignoring all these licenses right now.

This is basically the entire industry. We are all getting away with it.

Here's an example, take llama.

Llama originally disallowed commercial activity. But then the license got changed much later.

So, if you were a stupid person, then you followed the license and fell behind. And if you were smart, you ignored it and got ahead of everyone else.

Which, in retrospect was correct.

Because now the license allows commerical activity, so everyone who ignores it in the first place got away with it and is now ahead of everyone else.

> won't sue is beyond foolish

But we already got away with it with llama! That's already over! It's commerical now, and nobody got sued! For that example, the people who ignored the license won.

[esafak]

The nice thing about this is that the calculus is in favor of startups, who can roll the dice.