This is the greatest misconception in this field. Weights are not a binary form! In fact you can't "run" the weights as they are. They only represent some fixed values.
Whenever you use an LLM you "load" the weights, using (usually open source) code and you run inference with that code. The weights are not binary and the analogy to the binary form of distributing software is not valid, IMO.
That is why I used the analogy of a python code with ifs all the way, based on hardcoded values. That is what you are arguing is not open source. The weights are just "hardcoded values".
Open source never had the requirement of the author explaining what, why or how they got a hardcoded value in their shared code. Why it suddenly does for LLMs is what I find funny.
By that argument, all bytecode is open source, because it has to be run in some other environment, and you can technically modify it if you want to. Open source is supposed to refer to the human-interpretable elements of the code. E.g., kernel modules that are technically formatted as C code but contain non-human readable firmware as values are still considered "binary blobs" and not part of the free/open source kernels some distros ship.
Whenever you use an LLM you "load" the weights, using (usually open source) code and you run inference with that code. The weights are not binary and the analogy to the binary form of distributing software is not valid, IMO.
That is why I used the analogy of a python code with ifs all the way, based on hardcoded values. That is what you are arguing is not open source. The weights are just "hardcoded values".
Open source never had the requirement of the author explaining what, why or how they got a hardcoded value in their shared code. Why it suddenly does for LLMs is what I find funny.