Well, yes. They are a company, with shareholders and all. So while not breaching any law, they should indeed pursue strategies that they think would be profitable.
And for all the negativity seen in many of the comments here I think it’s actually quite remarkable that they make model checkpoints available freely. It’s an externality, but a positive one. Not quite there yet in terms of the ideal - which is definitely open source - and surely with an abuse of language, which I also note. But overall, the best that is achievable now I think.
The true question we should be tackling is, is there an incentive-compatible way to develop foundation models in a truly open source way? How to promote these conditions, if they do exist?
And for all the negativity seen in many of the comments here I think it’s actually quite remarkable that they make model checkpoints available freely. It’s an externality, but a positive one. Not quite there yet in terms of the ideal - which is definitely open source - and surely with an abuse of language, which I also note. But overall, the best that is achievable now I think.
The true question we should be tackling is, is there an incentive-compatible way to develop foundation models in a truly open source way? How to promote these conditions, if they do exist?