<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>Also applicable to all licenses, there are some spelling errors
and some punctuation changes that would make it more readable. <br>
</p>
<p>In particular in each of the licenses in the definition of
"Distribution" it should be "or other methods of making," not "of
marking." <br>
</p>
<p>The definition of "You" could be more precisely written as "'You'
(or 'Your') means you, or any other person or entity you are
entering into this license on behalf of, provided you have the
legal authority to bind such person or entity."<br>
</p>
<p>In section 2.1(a) I would say "Subject to the conditions<i><b> in
Section 2.2</b></i> of this License ..."</p>
<p>Section 3 (Disclaimer) has a disclaimer of the breach of the
warranty of non-infringement twice.<br>
</p>
<p>There may be an unintended copyleft effect in all the licenses in
Section 6. It says "Nothing in this License permits You to modify
this License as applied to the Licensed Materials or to Derivative
<br>
Materials." This sentence suggests to me that Derivative Materials
are <i>also </i>under the same license. If someone could choose
their own license for derivative works, which I believe is the
intention with the MG0 and MG-BY versions, these licenses wouldn't
necessarily be attached to Derivative Materials, but this
paragraph suggests otherwise.</p>
<p>The BY-OS license says in section 2.2(a)(iv) "provide a copy of
all such Distributed Licensed Materials and Distributed Derivative
Materials in Source Code Form<i><b> to such third party</b></i>."
There is no antecedent mention of "third party" that "such" refers
back to. A reference to a "third party" is also ambiguous. A
"third party" is usually anyone who is not a party to the
agreement, so one can argue that random people can get source
code, which I assume is not your intention. It would be better to
say "provide a copy of all such Distributed Licensed Materials and
Distributed Derivative Materials in Source Code Form to the
recipient of the Distributed Licensed Materials or Distributed
Derivative Materials." <br>
</p>
<p>Not necessarily a bar to license approval, but I am skeptical
that copyleft is a workable concept for models, particularly where
the Model is used for training of new models through distillation
or generating synthetic data. This is a known problem for
databases[1] and I expect it will be even more challenging for
models. It can easily become unmanageable.<br>
</p>
<p>Pam<br>
</p>
<p>[1]:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lu.is/2016/09/copyleft-and-data-databases-as-poor-subject/">https://lu.is/2016/09/copyleft-and-data-databases-as-poor-subject/</a><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-signature">Pamela S. Chestek<br>
Chestek Legal<br>
4641 Post St.<br>
Unit 4316<br>
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762<br>
+1 919-800-8033<br>
pamela@chesteklegal<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.chesteklegal.com">www.chesteklegal.com</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/14/2025 2:21 PM, McCoy Smith
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:701f342b-cf66-413d-bc6a-c70e3fc148e1@lexpan.law">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<p>[this, and prior messages on ModelGo are personal capacity not
as Board member]<br>
</p>
<p>On this one, I'm going to reiterate some of my comments on the
MG0 & MG-BY licenses, 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>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Also, like the MG0 (but not the MG-BY) license, I have some
concerns about the nomenclature used here. I think a better name
for this license would be MG-BY-SA, as it is consistent with the
nomenclature used by Creative Commons for its licenses that have
the scope of this license: attribution + share alike/copyleft.
The "BY-OS" ("OS" standing for "Open Source") nomenclature I
think is less descriptive than it should be and/or could confuse
people, particularly since the other two versions of this
license are also intended to be open source (and indeed, are
being submitted for open source approval by OSI), so this is not
the only "open source" ModelGo license.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Finally, there was some prior discussion on the obligation in
this license to provide an attribution to the model for any
output using the model. I won't reiterate that discussion, which
I think is interesting (and I think there is an argument that
that obligation arguably violates OSD 9 -- even though OSD 9
talks about "other software" not "other output" or "other
content"). Nevertheless, I wonder to what extent that analysis
would impact the OSAID's Data Information requirement, which is
a bit like the output requirement here but in the other
direction. It's something worth spending some time thinking
about.</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/22/2025 7:53 PM, Moming Duan
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:F6215993-BF40-4C29-A881-A4C0D348D1CB@gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
Dear OSI Community,
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Based on previous discussions and comments, I have revised
the ModelGo Attribution-OpenSource License (MG-BY-OS-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.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><font color="#00ff00">\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 Major Updates to Previous
Submission</font></div>
<div><font color="#00ff00"><br>
</font></div>
<div>
<li data-start="76" data-end="133" style="caret-color: rgb(0,
0, 0);"><font color="#00ff00">Add conditions for
distributing outputs as a dataset.</font></li>
<li data-start="134" data-end="232" style="caret-color: rgb(0,
0, 0);"><font color="#00ff00">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(0,
0, 0);"><font color="#00ff00">Remove the annex.</font></li>
<li data-start="255" data-end="304" style="caret-color: rgb(0,
0, 0);"><font color="#00ff00">Eliminate redundant clauses
from the license.</font></li>
<li data-start="305" data-end="411"><font color="#00ff00"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Clarify definitions
of </span><strong data-start="330" data-end="349"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">\u201cDistribution",</span></strong><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span><strong
data-start="350" data-end="365"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">\u201cLicensor",</span></strong><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span><strong
data-start="366" data-end="391"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"Licensed
Materials\u201d,</span></strong><span style="caret-color:
rgb(0, 0, 0);"> and </span><strong data-start="396"
data-end="409"><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"Output\u201d.</span></strong></font></li>
<li data-start="412" data-end="483"><font color="#00ff00"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Remove definitions
of </span><strong data-start="436" data-end="449"
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"License"</strong><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> and </span><strong
data-start="454" data-end="481"><span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">"Open Source
Software\u201d.</span></strong></font></li>
<li data-start="484" data-end="566" data-is-last-node=""
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><font color="#00ff00">Refine
license clauses based on feedback from the previous round
of OSI review.</font></li>
</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><br>
</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-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 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-OS-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-os.html"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://ids.nus.edu.sg/modelgo-mg-by-os.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-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). <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 \u2014 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 \u2014 No discrimination clause is included in
MG-BY-OS-2.0.</div>
<div>OSD 9 License Must Not Restrict Other Software \u2014 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 (<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-OS-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-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 2.2(b) includes conditions regarding model output.</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);">\U0001f917</span></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best,</div>
<div>Moming</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=UTF-8">
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Communication from the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
License-review mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:License-review@lists.opensource.org" moz-do-not-send="true">License-review@lists.opensource.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-review_lists.opensource.org" moz-do-not-send="true">http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-review_lists.opensource.org</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Communication from the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
License-review mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:License-review@lists.opensource.org">License-review@lists.opensource.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-review_lists.opensource.org">http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-review_lists.opensource.org</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>