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<p>I'm going repeat my comments on the MG-0 license here since they
are equally applicable to this license (which appears to replicate
the text of MG-0, except for the addition of the conditions in
2.2):</p>
<p>1. The disclaimers are not made "conspicuous" as that term is
defined in UCC 2-316: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-316">https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2/2-316</a> That
has been interpreted as requiring something like ALL CAPS or bold,
or a different color, or a box (although the criteria changed in
2022). This isn't necessarily a flaw (whether UCC is relevant to
open source licenses is an interesting question) but the practice
seems to be that most newer open source licenses try to adhere to
this requirement (most by using ALL CAPS since that tends to be
the only way to do this with .txt files or ASCII -- which
non-lawyers tend to dislike because they interpret it as screaming
without understanding why it's done that way).<br>
<br>
2. I find the way the grants are structured sub-optimal in the way
that it handles the right of performance under copyright law.
Rather than being in the grant, it is subsumed into the definition
of "Distribution/Distribute" and then grants a right to
Distribute. All rights are granted (which is good, that way you
don't have to rely on implied grants) but you do need to dig into
the definitions to get there.</p>
<p>As to the Attribution version of the license, my only comment is
this license requires in Section 2.2(i) that a copy of the license
be provided. This is a fairly common provision of many so called
"permissive" or non-copyleft licenses although I've always
wondered what value this requirement provides, given that this
license is intended (I believe) to be non-copyleft.</p>
<p>Otherwise, this license seems OK.</p>
<p>McCoy</p>
<p>[in my personal capacity and not as a member of the board]</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/18/2025 2:31 AM, Moming Duan
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:883778D3-40CF-4DCF-B65F-AD07D9F427AD@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);">Following
our previous discussions in May, I have made further revisions
to the ModelGo </span>Attribution<span
style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> License
(MG-BY-2.0). I am submitting this updated version for OSI
review via this email. The license text is attached.</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><font color="#ff0000">Removes restrictions on model
output.</font></li>
<li><font color="#ff0000">Revises the termination clause to
provide for automatic termination.</font></li>
<li><font color="#ff0000">Adds more explicit granting of
rights in Section 2.1. </font></li>
<li><font color="#ff0000">Narrows the definition of
\u201cDerivative Materials\u201d by including the phrase: \u201cin order
to replicate, approximate, or otherwise achieve functional
behavior that is similar to the Model.\u201d </font></li>
<li><font color="#ff0000">Removes \u201cDerivative Materials\u201d in
Section 5: \u201cNothing in this License permits You to modify
this License as applied to the Licensed Materials.\u201d </font></li>
<li><font color="#ff0000">Fixes typos and formatting issues.</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
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>
<br>
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