<div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All,</div><div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As always, not a lawyer, just an interested</div><div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I really think it is unwise to approve this license with a requirement that the licensed software only be use in way that's compliant with "all applicable
law". While I think it was always unwise, I think there are few issues at hand as of late that encourage a greater caution.<br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><br></div><div style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In particular, there are marginalized groups of people who may use software in ways that are of unclear legality or where the legality may be changing rapidly. To be clear, I'm not even suggesting things like civil disobedience or similar, I'm talking about groups who defend LGBTQ rights, abortion access funds, advocates for migrants and refugees, etc. The legality of their actions are unclear at times and states are enforcing laws that already exist more broadly that ever. A license that requires them to comply with all applicable law isn't simply a reminder that uses need to obey the law, it's a condition that a private entity could attempt to enforce, isn't it? Regardless of the likelihood of that enforcement, isn't this saying a private entity can enforce their own ethics via an infringement lawsuit as long as the ethics they care about match the current governments? I don't think a FOSS license should ever given a creator any sort of legal control over a user's actions. And I don't think any such license complies with OSD criteria 6 and maybe criteria 5.<br><br>Secondly, I think we should be mindful of what effect approving the first OSAID license may have on future licenses. Consider: Multiple people have said having a condition requiring compliance with all applicable laws is "unwise" and not recommended in an open source license. At the same time, every license I've personally seen for an source available (is that even the right phrase?) AI has this specific condition. If the first OSAID license has that condition and every source available AI has this specific condition then I think there's a decent changes that's probably going to be in all of the OSAID submissions going forward. And if that becomes the norm, it's going to be even less likely to find a license without it.<br><br>I think we should be extremely wary of approving any license that requires "compliance with all applicable laws" and, in particular, as the very first OSAID license.<br><br>Eric</div><div class="protonmail_quote">
On Wednesday, February 12th, 2025 at 7:26 AM, Moming Duan <duanmoming@gmail.com> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="protonmail_quote" type="cite">
Dear OSI Community,<div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I am Moming Duan, a researcher at the National University of Singapore and the submitter and license steward of <b>ModelGo Attribution-OpenSource License 2.0</b>, which I am submitting for OSI review through this email. The license TEXT file is attached, and below is a brief overview of this license.</div><div><br></div><div><b>License Name</b>:<span style="white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">ModelGo </span>Attribution-OpenSource<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> License</span></div><div><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b>Version</b>: <span style="white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>2.0</span></div><div><font color="#000000"><b>Short Identifier: <span style="white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span></b><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-OS-2.0</span></font></div><div><b style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Copyleft:</b><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">No</span></div><div><b>Legacy or New</b>: <span style="white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>New License</div><div><b>Drafted By Lawyer</b>: <span style="white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Yes, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP</div><div><b>Approved or <span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Used</span> by Projects</b>: <span style="white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>No</div><div><br></div><div><b>License URL</b>:<span style="white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><a href="https://ids.nus.edu.sg/modelgo-mg-by-os.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener">https://ids.nus.edu.sg/modelgo-mg-by-os.html</a></div><div><b>Introduction and Video</b>:<span style="white-space: pre;" class="Apple-tab-span"> </span><a href="https://www.modelgo.li/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener">https://www.modelgo.li/</a></div><div><br></div><div><b>Overview</b>:</div><div><br></div><div>ModelGo Attribution-OpenSource License Version 2.0 (MG-BY-OS-2.0) is a new license designed for publishing models (typically neural networks like Llama2, DeepSeek). It is one of the variants in the ModelGo License family. MG-BY-OS-2.0 is the a <font color="#07ff00">copyleft</font> license in the ModelGo family, requiring tha<font color="#000000">t the original license and attribution be provided when </font>distributing the original Licensed Materials or Derivative Materials (<span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Licensed Materials and </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Derivative Materials are</span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>defined in Clause 1.1). <font color="#000000">A statement of modification is required, if applicable. </font><font color="#07ff00">Derivative Materials should be licensed under the same terms as MG-BY-OS-2.0, and redistribution of original works or derivatives should include the source code. This license is intended to be an open-source model license that provides as much openness as possible within the scope of the model itself (in contrast to Llama2 license and OpenRAIL licenses). While it is not a determining factor for an open-source AI system, it can be considered one of its requirements.</font></div><div><font color="#07ff00">(Green content represents the differences from MG-BY-2.0 license)</font></div><div><br></div><div><b>Complies with OSD:</b></div><div><b><br></b></div><div>OSD 3 Derived Works — MG-BY-OS-2.0 <span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Clause 2.1 (a) grants copyright and patent rights to create derivatives.</span></div><div>OSD 5 and OSD 6 — No discrimination clause is included in MG-BY-OS-2.0.</div><div>OSD 9 License Must Not Restrict Other Software — No such restriction is included in MG-BY-OS-2.0.</div><div><br></div><div><b>The Gap to Fill:</b></div><div>Model sharing is very common on the web, with over 1.4 million models currently listed on Hugging Face (https://huggingface.co/models). However, most of these models are not properly licensed. When publishing their models, developers typically choose from three main options (as seen in the model license tags on the Hugging Face website):</div><div><br></div><div><ul class="MailOutline"><li>OSS licenses, e.g., Apache-2.0, MIT</li><li>Open responsible AI licenses (OpenRAILs), e.g., CreativeML-OpenRAIL-M, OpenRAIL++</li><li>Proprietary Licenses, e.g., Llama2, Llama3</li></ul></div><div><br></div><div>However, not all licenses are well-suited for model publishing.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Why not use OSS licenses? </b></div><div>Traditional OSS licenses lack clear definitions regarding machine learning concepts, such as Models, Output, and Derivatives created through knowledge transfer. This ambiguity can result in certain ML activities (e.g., Distillation, Mix-of-Expert) being beyond the control of the model owner.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Why not use OpenRAILs? </b></div><div>Recently, Responsible AI Licenses (<a href="https://www.licenses.ai/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer nofollow noopener">https://www.licenses.ai/</a>) have been widely advocated to govern AI technologies, aiming to restrict unlawful and unethical uses of models. While I acknowledge the growing need for such governance, these copyleft-style restrictions do not comply with the OSD and may cause incompatibility with licenses like GPL-3.0. Another concern is that these behavioral restrictions may proliferate within the AI model ecosystem, increasing the risk of license breaches.</div><div><br></div><div><b style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Why not use Llama2 or Llama3 Licenses?</b></div><div><font color="#000000">These licenses are proprietary licenses that are not reusable. </font>Furthermore, they include exclusive terms such as "You will not use the Llama Materials or any output or results of the Llama Materials to improve any other large language model" and copyleft-style behavioral restrictions.</div><div><br></div><div>In fact, the dilemma in current model publishing is the lack of a general-purpose license for model developers. Additionally, since no single license meets diverse model publishing needs, some developers resort to using CC licenses with different elements. However, CC licenses are ill-suited for this purpose as they do not grant patent rights. This motivated the drafting of ModelGo License family, which provides different licensing elements similar to CC but specifically designed for model publishing.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Comparison with Existing OSI-Approved Licenses:</b></div><div>Since I could not find an OSI-approved model license, I can only compare MG-BY-OS-2.0 with one similar OSS license — Apache-2.0</div><div><div><br></div><div><li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-OS-2.0 defines licensed materials and derivative works differently from Apache-2.0, tailoring them to models.</li><li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-OS-2.0 Clause 2.4 includes provisions regarding model output.</li><li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-OS-2.0 Clause 2.2(a) clarifies the ownership of Derivative Materials.</li><li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-OS-2.0 Clause 7 specifies the governing law.</li><li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-OS-2.0 Annex A includes a Model Sheet to help users choose and understand the license content.</li><li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-OS-2.0 can govern the remote access (e.g., chatbot) scenario.</li><li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><font color="#07ff00">MG-BY-OS-2.0 is a copyleft license and requires the source code to be provided during redistribution.</font></li></div></div><div><br></div><div>If further comparisons or supporting evidence are needed to strengthen my claims, please let me know. I am more than willing to engage in further discussions with the OSI community about this license and contribute to promoting standardized model publishing. <span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">🤗</span></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div>Moming</div><div><br></div><div></div><div></div>
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