[License-discuss] OpenMDW license

[Richard Fontana]

Copying Matt White and Steve Winslow, don't know if they are
subscribed to this list.

Richard


On Fri, Jun 20, 2025 at 7:12 PM Brian Behlendorf <brian at behlendorf.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Asking about this here, rather than submitting to license-review, as I am
> not the license steward, nor am I (any longer) involved in the Linux
> Foundation.
>
> About a month ago, the Linux Foundation released a license applicable to
> LLM models called the OpenMDW License:
>
> https://openmdw.ai/license/
>
> The website describes this as an "open source" license, yet I see no
> attempts (by reviewing the archives of license-discuss and license-review)
> by the authors to bring this to OSI for formal approval. Does anyone see
> anything in the license that would hinder such approval?
>
> I'm personally unclear on the problem this solves. The purpose as stated
> on the OpenMDW's FAQ reads a bit like "but it goes to 11". It seems like
> one could have written a guide to distributing a model with existing
> permissive licensing, as typically the purpose of the software is not
> really relevant to its licensing.
>
> It seems to be emphatic about things that don't need stating, like outputs
> of the model aren't covered by the license - but nor are "outputs" of gcc
> or LibreOffice.
>
> It also doesn't require, as OSAID did, that the underlying data used to
> train the model weights be published. This is "fine" from a
> permissive-license POV - I imagine with some digging we can find
> permissive-licensed-works that contain binary blobs, and we've long
> accepted closed-source binary firmware updates as a part of the Linux
> kernel project. So it's still unclear to me that weights couldn't just be
> distributed under current permissive licenses.
>
> The real stand-out portion for me, however, is the second-to-last
> paragraph, disclaiming responsibility for any IP rights that may some day
> be associated with the weights or other model materials, even if derived
> from data not included in the distribution. While the courts have not
> ruled decisively on this, you would not see AI companies signing deals
> with content companies to scrape their data if there wasn't at least some
> OIP risk involved in not doing so. It also seems to ignore that the global
> policy train seem heading in the direction of limiting the ability to
> disclaim liability in a software license, and that doesn't seem to have
> changed under the current US administration. The disclaimer seems
> extraneous, compared to current disclaimers in most permissive licenses.
> Furthermore to the degree that people rely on that disclaimer, it seems
> like it can create novel risks that OSS licenses are supposed to be
> mitigating rather than adding to. This is because if presented with a
> claim of infringement, there may be no way for the end-user or distributor
> to quickly modify the model by modifying the training set and rebuilding.
>
> But none of these concerns are really about potential violations of the
> OSD.
>
> Therefore, for the sake of clarity, if there isn't anything in this
> license that clashes with the OSD, I humbly suggest it should be proposed
> by the license steward and considered for approval. That way the use of
> the term "open source" on the OpenMDW pages is legitimized, and the AI
> community can be reassured that their "unique" needs are being met - even
> if OpenMDW is duplicative of existing permissive licenses. Right now I
> sense a schism emerging between generations that threatens to sideline OSI
> in the minds of developers, and this could be an bridge between the two.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Brian
>
>
>
>
>
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