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by diggan 355 days ago
> but the reality is that these model are expensive to develop and many developers are choosing not to release their model weights at all.

But isn't that true for software too? Software is expensive to develop, and lots of developers/companies are choosing not to make their code public for free. Does that mean you also feel like it would be OK to call software "open source" although it doesn't allow usage for any purpose? That would then lead to more "open source" software being released, at least for individuals and researchers?
2 comments
hmottestad 355 days ago
I wouldn't equate model weights with source code. You can run software on your own machine without source code, but you can't run an LLM on your own machine without model weights.

Though, you could still sell the model weights for local use. Not sure if we are there yet that I myself could buy model weights, but of course if you are a very big company or a very big country then I guess most AI companies would consider selling you their model weights so you can run them on your own machine.

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rushingcreek 355 days ago
Yes, I think the same analogy applies. Given a binary choice of a developer not releasing any code at all or releasing code under this type of binary "open-code" license, I'd always take the latter.
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diggan 355 days ago
> Given a binary choice of a developer not releasing any code at all

I mean it wasn't binary earlier, it was "to get more model developers to release", so not a binary choice, but a gradient I suppose. Would you still make the same call for software as you do for ML models and weights?

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