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<p>On this one, I'm going to reiterate some of my comments on the
MG0 license, as they apply here equally (since the language is the
same):<br>
<br>
In terms of drafting, I dislike the articulation of the license
grant here as it uses various license permissions in a way that is
inconsistent with the rights the various intellectual property
regimes articulate them, but more importantly, leaves out quite a
number of them. This is in part the fault of using older licenses
(BSD, I think) as a starting model.<br>
<br>
In the USA, the copyright permissions are: reproduce, distribute,
prepare derivative works, display<br>
<br>
Outside of the USA, the patent permissions are (via Berne):
reproduce, broadcast, communicate, adapt, arrange, recite,
translate<br>
<br>
In the USA, the patent permissions are: make, use, sell, offer for
sale, import.<br>
<br>
Outside of the USA, the patent permissions are similar in scope,
but sometimes use dispose or other language rather than the above.<br>
<br>
This license only grants the following rights under both copyright
and patent: use, reproduce, distribute. and "use the Licensed
Materials to create Derivative Materials." That means it leaves
out 5 of the 6 enumerated patent rights in the USA. I think that
newer licenses ought to be more rigorous in the way they
articulate their permissions lest a court (or a licensor) argue
that certain rights were reserved or not granted (such as, for
example, the right to sell, offer for sale, or import the software
under patents. I understand there are precedents from prior
licenses (BSD is the best example) for not fully articulating all
of these rights, but I think that precedent shouldn't be used to
allow for incompletely written licenses now.<br>
<br>
Finally, the termination provision for patent assertions applies
to Derivative Works. There's a long-standing debate about whether
that sort of termination is overbroad, particularly as it prevents
the assertion of patents against downstream modifiers of the
upstream licensor's patents covering subsequent modification out
of the control of the licensor. One of the reasons why the newer,
popular licenses articulate their defensive termination/suspension
clauses more narrowly than this is because of the concern that
patent holders would be reluctant to grant an open-ended patent
license to downstream licensees. I don't think that's an OSD
violation, but it is an issue as to whether a license of this
scope would gain significant uptake at least from patent holders.</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/22/2025 7:53 PM, Moming Duan
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:12881ADD-1CA2-4C3F-82CB-49A90C25561F@gmail.com">
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Dear OSI Community,
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Based
on previous discussions and comments, I have revised the
ModelGo Attribution License (MG-BY-2.0) with the assistance of
law students. I am submitting this revised license for OSI
review via this email. The license text file is attached
below.</span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><font color="#ff0000">\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014
Major Updates to Previous Submission</font></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><font color="#ff0000"><br>
</font></div>
<div style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
<li data-start="76" data-end="133"
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font
color="#ff0000">Add conditions for distributing outputs as
a dataset.</font></li>
<li data-start="134" data-end="232"
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font
color="#ff0000">Remove the <strong data-start="147"
data-end="173">"Third-Party Material"</strong> and <strong
data-start="178" data-end="220">"Governing Law and
Dispute Resolution"</strong> sections.</font></li>
<li data-start="233" data-end="254"
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font
color="#ff0000">Remove the annex.</font></li>
<li data-start="255" data-end="304"
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font
color="#ff0000">Eliminate redundant clauses from the
license.</font></li>
<li data-start="305" data-end="411"><font color="#ff0000"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Clarify
definitions of </span><strong data-start="330"
data-end="349"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">\u201cDistribution",</span></strong><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><strong
data-start="350" data-end="365"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">\u201cLicensor",</span></strong><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><strong
data-start="366" data-end="391"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Licensed
Materials\u201d,</span></strong><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and </span><strong
data-start="396" data-end="409"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Output\u201d.</span></strong></font></li>
<li data-start="412" data-end="483"><font color="#ff0000"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Remove
definitions of </span><strong data-start="436"
data-end="449" style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"License"</strong><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> and </span><strong
data-start="454" data-end="481"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Open Source
Software\u201d.</span></strong></font></li>
<li data-start="484" data-end="566" data-is-last-node=""
style="caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font
color="#ff0000">Refine license clauses based on feedback
from the previous round of OSI review.</font></li>
</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 </span><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">License </span><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Introduction</span></div>
<div><b><br>
</b></div>
<div><b>License Name</b>:<span class="Apple-tab-span"
style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">ModelGo </span>Attribution<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
class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2.0</span></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><b>Short Identifier: <span
class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b>MG-BY-2.0</font></div>
<div><b style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Copyleft:</b><span
class="Apple-tab-span"
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; white-space: pre;"> </span><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">No</span></div>
<div><b>Legacy or New</b>: <span class="Apple-tab-span"
style="white-space: pre;"> </span>New License</div>
<div><b>Drafted By Lawyer</b>: <span class="Apple-tab-span"
style="white-space: pre;"> </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 class="Apple-tab-span"
style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><b>License URL</b>:<span class="Apple-tab-span"
style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a
href="https://ids.nus.edu.sg/modelgo-mg-by.html"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://ids.nus.edu.sg/modelgo-mg-by.html</a></div>
<div><b>Introduction and Video</b>:<span class="Apple-tab-span"
style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a
href="https://www.modelgo.li/" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.modelgo.li/</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><b>Overview</b>:</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>ModelGo Attribution License Version 2.0 (MG-BY-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-2.0 is the a permissive
license in the ModelGo family, requiring that the original
license <font color="#ff0000">and attribution</font> be provided
when 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). <font color="#ff0000">A statement of modification
is required, if applicable.</font></div>
<div><font color="#ff0000">(Red content represents the differences
from MG0-2.0 license)</font></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><b>Complies with OSD:</b></div>
<div><b><br>
</b></div>
<div>OSD 3 Derived Works \u2014 MG-BY-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 \u2014 No discrimination clause is included in
MG-BY-2.0.</div>
<div>OSD 9 License Must Not Restrict Other Software \u2014 No such
restriction is included in MG-BY-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 (<a
href="https://huggingface.co/models" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://huggingface.co/models</a>).
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/" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">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-2.0 with one similar OSS license \u2014 Apache-2.0</div>
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-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-2.0
Clause 2.2(b) includes provisions regarding model output.</li>
<li style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">MG-BY-2.0
can govern the remote access (e.g., chatbot) scenario.</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);">\U0001f917</span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Moming</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
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<pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">_______________________________________________
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