[License-discuss] OpenMDW license

[Steve Winslow]

Hi Brian, thanks for raising this -- and Richard, thanks for flagging it
for us. I'm responding on behalf of the Linux Foundation as the OpenMDW
license steward. I was involved along with several other internal and
external participants in drafting OpenMDW-1.0 and its earlier iterations.

We do intend to submit OpenMDW-1.0 to the license-review list to go through
OSI's review process. We are looking to be able to point to broader "use in
the wild" before we do so, in case that's helpful as context for the
community during the review. We're also aiming to be thoughtful about how
this aligns with OSD / OSAID as well as OSI's processes for reviewing
AI-related licenses and distribution terms.

We'll plan to follow up (likely in the near future) with an actual
submission of OpenMDW-1.0 for formal review by the community.

Best,
Steve

On Sat, Jun 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org>
wrote:

> 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
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not
> necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the
> Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
> >
> > License-discuss mailing list
> > License-discuss at lists.opensource.org
> >
> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
>
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