[License-review] Adapting the license-review process to AI

[Pamela Chestek]

On 9/10/2024 6:49 AM, Roland Turner via License-review wrote:
> On 10/9/24 17:46, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
>
>> There's another related practical question: what would be the published
>> *output* of OSAID-related reviews?
>>
>> For traditional license review, the output is
>> https://opensource.org/licenses  , i.e., a (tagged) list of licenses,
>> each pointing to the full license text. For OSAID, I'm hence assuming
>> (but would like to have confirmation) that it will be a list of "terms
>> of use".
>>
>> One practical problem is that terms of use are less often properly
>> versioned than licenses, so we will probably need to both self-host
>> (which we already do) and possibly self-version (which would be new).
>> Or maybe insist that submitters properly version terms of use as a
>> pre-condition for evaluation.
>
> This seems like a minor issue. There might literally be terms of use 
> (as in a data use agreement), but as multiple areas of law are 
> involved, multiple types of terms in multiple types of instruments may 
> arise. OSAID therefore just refers to "an AI system made available 
> under terms and in a way that grant the freedoms to". So perhaps 
> "terms of availability" but really just "terms". Perhaps hosted at 
> https://opensource.org/aiterms .
>
> Anything that OSI approves will presumably be posted on the OSI 
> website. The likely standard is the one already used for this list 
> <https://opensource.org/licenses/review-process>:
>
>> Provide a *unique name* for the license, preferably including the 
>> version number.
>
> I suspect that in pretty short order, someone who gets a version of AI 
> system terms with a unique name approved by OSI, and then publishes 
> modified terms under the same name and claiming OSI approval will 
> receive a polite letter from OSI.
>
The OSI will be reviewing and documenting its approval of legal terms 
that are meant for use with AI systems. I wouldn't get hung up on what 
they're called; "terms of use" is one thing they're called but at the 
end of the day they are all legal agreements imposed on the use of the 
component - or maybe not, if the mechanism for making them binding has 
failed.

One of the standards for the current license approval process is that 
the document must be reusable by others. I expect that will be required 
here, so that some standardization of nomenclature evolves.

Pam

Pamela S. Chestek
Chair, Licensing Committee
Open Source Initiative
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20240910/4937d864/attachment-0001.htm>