<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><span id="m_-56303644184893493m_3140990305452718237m_-8009341911299278688gmail-docs-internal-guid-135ad104-7fff-440f-2f5a-99e976d7caf9"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="background-color:transparent;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;white-space:pre-wrap">To the OSI License Review Committee:</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">On behalf of The Linux Foundation, the license steward, I submit the OpenMDW License Agreement, version 1.1 ("OpenMDW-1.1"), for review and approval as a new license. The complete license text is included below in plain text (LICENSE.OpenMDW-1.1) and is also published at </span><a href="https://github.com/OpenMDW/OpenMDW" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://github.com/OpenMDW/OpenMDW</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> (1.1/ folder) and at </span><a href="https://openmdw.ai/license/1-1/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">https://openmdw.ai/license/1-1/</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The information required for the review process is as follows.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">1. License name and version</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">OpenMDW License Agreement, version 1.1 (\u201cOpenMDW-1.1\u201d).</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">2. License steward and submitter</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Steward: The Linux Foundation</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Submitter: Mike Dolan, a natural person, SVP, Legal & Strategic Programs, The Linux Foundation, submitting on behalf of the steward.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">3. OSD compliance</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">I affirm that OpenMDW-1.1 complies with the Open Source Definition, including specifically: OSD 3 (the license permits modifications and derived works and their distribution under the same terms); OSD 5 (no discrimination against persons or groups); OSD 6 (no discrimination against fields of endeavor); and OSD 9 (the license does not restrict other software distributed alongside the licensed materials). The same compliance confirmations <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">would also </span>apply to the previous OpenMDW-1.0 version.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">4. Gap filled by the license</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">AI model distributions bundle heterogeneous artifacts, often including a model architecture and parameters (weights), documentation, and software, that can be subject to different and overlapping intellectual property regimes (copyright, patent, sui generis database rights). Existing OSI-approved licenses were drafted primarily for software and potentially might not, by their terms, explicitly grant rights across these regimes or address non-software artifacts such as data and model parameters. In addition, they are generally silent about the potential effect of license obligations on model outputs. At the same time, providers of commercial model solutions included terms purporting to govern and restrict use of model outputs, creating a gap with common open source licenses.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">As a related motivating factor, real-world experience among academic researchers who desired to adopt the </span><a href="https://lfaidata.foundation/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/01/05_White_paper_MOF_Specification.pdf" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Model Openness Framework (MOF)</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> for their AI model distributions\u2014but who were not deeply familiar with open source software and other open content licensing practices\u2014found it complicated to understand which specific license texts to include in which parts of their distributions. These community participants indicated to us a desire for one appropriate license that could apply to the distribution as a whole, across all applicable types of content.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">OpenMDW-1.1 addresses these gaps by providing a single permissive instrument that grants rights in all such artifacts (defined as "Model Materials") under all applicable IP regimes, conditions distribution only on retention of the license text and applicable notices, and expressly imposes no restrictions on outputs generated using the materials.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">5. Comparison to the most similar OSI-approved licenses</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The most similar OSI-approved licenses are the MIT License and the Apache License 2.0.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Compared to the MIT license, OpenMDW-1.1 shares MIT's brevity, its single permissive grant, the "deal in [the materials] without restriction" formulation, and the retention of the license and notices as the only condition. It differs in that OpenMDW-1.1 explicitly includes all copyright, patent, database, and trade secret rights in scope, defines its subject matter to include non-software artifacts, and expressly states that outputs are unrestricted by the license.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Compared with the Apache-2.0 license, both include a defensive litigation termination provision and expressly address patent rights. However, the termination provisions differ in scope. Apache-2.0's termination is limited to patent claims, whereas OpenMDW-1.1's termination applies to both patent and copyright assertions (the sole substantive change from OpenMDW-1.0 to OpenMDW-1.1). OpenMDW-1.1 also omits Apache-2.0's NOTICE-file and statement-of-changes requirements, conditioning redistribution only on retention of the license text and applicable notices.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">6. Legal review</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">OpenMDW was drafted by legal counsel. Version 1.0 was developed and released in 2025 by The Linux Foundation together with the PyTorch Foundation through a drafting process that included input from legal and AI community participants. <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">There are 8+ organizations we're aware of</span> that released models using Version 1.0, including IBM and the University of Luxembourg. Version 1.1 is a minor revision based on feedback from corporate legal teams on Version 1.0; its only substantive change <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">is extending</span> the litigation-termination provision from patent assertions to patent or copyright assertions. I am only submitting version 1.1 for review at this time, although the <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">same review could include version 1.0 if the review committee prefers to include both.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">7. Projects currently using the license. <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">As they are very similar in their license terms,</span> I have included adoption examples for both OpenMDW-1.1 and OpenMDW-1.0.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">NVIDIA has adopted OpenMDW-1.1 for 19 of its models, <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">including</span> </span><a href="https://huggingface.co/collections/nvidia/cosmos3" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Cosmos</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">, </span><a href="https://huggingface.co/nvidia/Ising-Calibration-1.5-31B-BF16" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Ising</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">, and </span><a href="https://huggingface.co/nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Ultra-550B-A55B-BF16" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Nemotron</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> open model families. <span id="m_-56303644184893493m_3140990305452718237gmail-docs-internal-guid-2ccc701e-7fff-ce5d-12f4-f72d541e1680"><span style="background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline">More recently, </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7490422036767395841/" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline">NVIDIA\u2019s Jensen Huang announced that its latest Alpamayo models</span></a><span style="background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> are using OpenMDW-1.1 as well. </span></span></span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Arcee AI </span><a href="https://www.arcee.ai/blog/trinity-is-moving-to-openmdw-1-1" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">has moved 6 of its Trinity models</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"> to OpenMDW-1.1</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Poolside </span><a href="https://poolside.ai/blog/introducing-laguna-s-2-1" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">has adopted OpenMDW-1.1 for its Laguna S 2.1 models</span></a></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="https://huggingface.co/BAAI/OpenSeek-Small-v1#license" target="_blank">BAAI's OpenSeek Small model</a> was also licensed under OpenMDW-1.0.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">ByteDance has published its <a href="https://huggingface.co/ByteDance-Seed/Seed-X-Instruct-7B#license" target="_blank">entire series of Seed-X models</a> under OpenMDW-1.0.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap"><a href="https://huggingface.co/hyper3labs/hyper3-clip-v0.5/blob/main/LICENSE" target="_blank">Hyper3labs has published its hyper3-clip-v0.5</a> under OpenMDW-1.0. </span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">IBM <span class="Asgive ng" style="border-style:none;background:none">and</span> Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation published <a href="https://huggingface.co/rosielickorish/ibm-geospatial-saltmarsh-uk-rgbdem-extent-2m">SaltMarsh</a> models under OpenMDW-1.0.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">We are also aware of other projects that will use OpenMDW-1.1 in the future.</span></li></ul><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">8. SPDX and other identifiers</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">OpenMDW-1.1 is not yet on the SPDX License List. The predecessor version is listed under the SPDX license identifier </span><a href="https://spdx.org/licenses/OpenMDW-1.0.html" style="text-decoration:none" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:underline;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">OpenMDW-1.0</span></a><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">. We expect to submit OpenMDW-1.1 for consideration in parallel with this submission to OSI. Pending listing, OpenMDW-1.1 can currently be referenced using the SPDX expression LicenseRef-OpenMDW-1.1. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Both Steve Winslow (CC\u2019d, the primary editor and coordinator for the drafting community) and I are subscribed to the license-review list and will respond to questions during the review.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Regards,</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Mike Dolan</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">SVP, Legal & Strategic Programs</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">The Linux Foundation</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><br></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;background-color:transparent;font-variant:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">LICENSE.OpenMDW-1.1 (plain text)</span></p></span></div><div dir="ltr">---</div><div dir="ltr">OpenMDW License Agreement, version 1.1 (OpenMDW-1.1)<br><br>By exercising rights granted to you under this agreement, you accept and agree<br>to its terms.<br><br>As used in this agreement, "Model Materials" means the materials provided to<br>you under this agreement, consisting of: (1) one or more machine learning<br>models (including architecture and parameters); and (2) all related artifacts<br>(including associated data, documentation and software) that are provided to<br>you hereunder.<br><br>Subject to your compliance with this agreement, permission is hereby granted,<br>free of charge, to deal in the Model Materials without restriction, including<br>under all copyright, patent, database, and trade secret rights included or<br>embodied therein.<br><br>If you distribute any portion of the Model Materials, you shall retain in your<br>distribution (1) a copy of this agreement, and (2) all copyright notices and<br>other notices of origin included in the Model Materials that are applicable to<br>your distribution.<br><br>If you file, maintain, or voluntarily participate in a lawsuit against any<br>person or entity asserting that the Model Materials directly or indirectly<br>infringe any patent or copyright, then all rights and grants made to you<br>hereunder are terminated, unless that lawsuit was in response to a<br>corresponding lawsuit first brought against you.<br><br>This agreement does not impose any restrictions or obligations with respect to<br>any use, modification, or sharing of any outputs generated by using the Model<br>Materials.<br><br>THE MODEL MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS<br>OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,<br>FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR THE<br>ABSENCE OF LATENT OR OTHER DEFECTS OR ERRORS, WHETHER OR NOT DISCOVERABLE, ALL<br>TO THE GREATEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.<br><br>YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR (1) CLEARING RIGHTS OF OTHER PERSONS THAT MAY<br>APPLY TO THE MODEL MATERIALS OR ANY USE THEREOF, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION<br>ANY PERSON'S COPYRIGHTS OR OTHER RIGHTS INCLUDED OR EMBODIED IN THE MODEL<br>MATERIALS; (2) OBTAINING ANY NECESSARY CONSENTS, PERMISSIONS OR OTHER RIGHTS<br>REQUIRED FOR ANY USE OF THE MODEL MATERIALS; OR (3) PERFORMING ANY DUE<br>DILIGENCE OR UNDERTAKING ANY OTHER INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE MODEL MATERIALS OR<br>ANYTHING INCORPORATED OR EMBODIED THEREIN.<br><br>IN NO EVENT SHALL THE PROVIDERS OF THE MODEL MATERIALS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,<br>DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR<br>OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE MODEL MATERIALS, THE<br>USE THEREOF OR OTHER DEALINGS THEREIN.</div>
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