The OSI has its own definition of open source AI: the Open Source AI Definition (OSAID 1.0). It requires model parameters, including weights, to be made available under OSI-approved terms, but does not prescribe a specific legal mechanism for doing so.
We have the Linux Foundation to manage commercial open source projects, the Apache Foundation to oversee its various open source programs, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) to coordinate open source licenses, and many more for various specific projects. It’s time we had an organization with the mission of ensuring that the top programmers and maintainers of valuable open source projects get a cut of the tech billionaire pie.
Adding the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) as an additional licensing option for Redis, starting with Redis 8, the business said it is moving to a licensing model approved as open source by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) – as the Server Side Public License (SSPLv1) it switched to in March last year has remained outside the accepted definition of open source software.
They’re available for download “In keeping with our commitment to open source” according to Meta’s announcement post. However the Open Source Initiative has claimed the Llama 4 Community Model is not open source because users in the European Union are denied some rights offered to users elsewhere.
The Open Source Initiative – the non-profit overseeing the Open Source Definition, which lays out the requirements for software licenses – is taking its effort to define Open Source AI to the wisdom of the crowds.
Leading in-memory database vendor Redis is switching to a dual-license approach, imposing far more restrictive terms. It is not the first time Redis has rewritten its terms. Back in 2018 it adjusted the license on some of its modules in ways which upset a quite a few open source luminaries.
We can all agree that securing our software is a good thing. Thanks to one security fiasco after another – the SolarWinds software supply chain attack, the perpetual Log4j vulnerability, and the npm maintainer protest code gone wrong – we know we must secure our code. But the European Union’s proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) goes way, way too far in trying to regulate software security.
Free software and open source licenses evolved to deal with code in the 1970s and ’80s. Today it must again transform to deal with AI models.
