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| ▲ | nextaccountic an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | No, it's like saying that if you release under Apache license, it's not open source even though it's under an open source license For something to be open source it needs to have sources released. Sources are the things in the preferred format to be edited. So the code used for training is obviously source (people can edit the training code to change something about the released weights). Also the training data, under the same rationale: people can select which data is used for training to change the weights | |
| ▲ | KaiserPro 5 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No its like releasing a binary. I can hook into it and its API and make it do other things. But I can't rebuild it from scratch. | |
| ▲ | fragmede an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No. In that case, you're providing two things, a binary version of your tool, and the tool's source. That tool's source is available to inspect and build their own copy. However, given just the weights, we don't have the source, and can't inspect what alignment went into it. In the case of DeepSeek, we know they had to purposefully cause their model to consider Tiananmen Square something it shouldn't discuss. But without the source used to create the model, we don't know what else is lurking around inside the model. | | |
| ▲ | NitpickLawyer an hour ago | parent [-] | | > However, given just the weights, we don't have the source This is incorrect, given the definitions in the license. > (Apache 2.0) "Source" form shall mean the preferred form for making modifications, including but not limited to software source code, documentation source, and configuration files. (emphasis mine) In LLMs, the weights are the preferred form of making modifications. Weights are not compiled from something else. You start with the weights (randomly initialised) and at every step of training you adjust the weights. That is not akin to compilation, for many reasons (both theoretical and practical). In general licenses do not give you rights over the "know-how" or "processes" in which the licensed parts were created. What you get is the ability to inspect, modify, redistribute the work as you see fit. And most importantly, you modify the work just like the creators modify the work (hence the preferred form). Just not with the same data (i.e. you can modify the source of chrome all you want, just not with the "know-how and knowledge" of a google engineer - the license can not offer that). This is also covered in the EU AI act btw. > General-purpose AI models released under free and open-source licences should be considered to ensure high levels of transparency and openness if their parameters, including the weights, the information on the model architecture, and the information on model usage are made publicly available. The licence should be considered to be free and open-source also when it allows users to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve software and data, including models under the condition that the original provider of the model is credited, the identical or comparable terms of distribution are respected. | | |
| ▲ | fragmede an hour ago | parent [-] | | > In LLMs, the weights are the preferred form of making modifications. No they aren't. We happen to be able to do things to modify the weights, sure, but why would any lab ever train something from scratch if editing weights was preferred? | | |
| ▲ | NitpickLawyer an hour ago | parent [-] | | training is modifying the weights. How you modify them is not the object of a license, never was. | | |
| ▲ | v9v 22 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Would you accept the argument that compiling is modifying the bytes in the memory space reserved for an executable? I can edit the executable at the byte level if I so desire, and this is also what compilers do, but the developer would instead be modifying the source code to make changes to the program and then feed that through a compiler. Similarly, I can edit the weights of a neural network myself (using any tool I want) but the developers of the network would be altering the training dataset and the training code to make changes instead. | |
| ▲ | noodletheworld 24 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | > And most importantly, you modify the work just like the creators modify the work Emphasis mine. Weights are not open source. You can define terms to mean whatever you want, but fundametally if you cannot modify the “output” the way the original creators could, its not in the spirit of open source. Isnt that literally what you said? How can you possibly claim both that a) you can modify it the creators did, b) thats all you need to be open source, but… Also c) the categorically incorrect assertion that the weights allow you to do this? Whatever, I guess, but your argument is logically wrong, and philosophically flawed. | | |
| ▲ | NitpickLawyer 7 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Weights are not open source. If they are released under an open source license, they are. I think you are confusing two concepts. One is the technical ability to modify weights. And that's what the license grants you. The right to modify. The second is the "know-how" on how to modify the weights. That is not something that a license has ever granted you. Let me put it this way: ```python THRESHOLD = 0.73214 if input() < THRESHOLD: print ("low")
else: print ("high")
```If I release that piece of code under Apache 2.0, you have the right to study it, modify it and release it as you see fit. But you can not have the right (at least the license doesn't deal with that) to know how I reached that threshold value. And me not telling you does not in any way invalidate the license being Apache 2.0. That's simply not something that licenses do. In LLMs the source is a collection of architecture (when and how to apply the "ifs"), inference code (how to optimise the computation of the "ifs") and hardcoded values (weights). You are being granted a license to run, study, modify and release those hardcoded values. You do not, never had, never will in the scope of a license, get the right to know how those hardcoded values were reached. The process by which those values were found can be anything from "dreamt up" to "found via ML". The fact that you don't know how those values were derived does not in any way preclude you from exercising the rights under the license. |
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| ▲ | nurettin an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is this a troll? They don't want to reproduce your open source code, they want to reproduce the weights. |
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