[License-review] [Resubmission] ModelGo Attribution-OpenSource License, Version 2.0

Thu May 15 04:10:46 UTC 2025

Also applicable to all licenses, there are some spelling errors and some 
punctuation changes that would make it more readable.

In particular in each of the licenses in the definition of 
"Distribution" it should be "or other methods of making," not "of marking."

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."

In section 2.1(a) I would say "Subject to the conditions/*in Section 
2.2*/ of this License ..."

Section 3 (Disclaimer) has a disclaimer of the breach of the warranty of 
non-infringement twice.

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
Materials." This sentence suggests to me that Derivative Materials are 
/also /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.

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/*to such third party*/." 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."

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.

Pam

[1]: https://lu.is/2016/09/copyleft-and-data-databases-as-poor-subject/

Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
4641 Post St.
Unit 4316
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
+1 919-800-8033
pamela at chesteklegal
www.chesteklegal.com

On 5/14/2025 2:21 PM, McCoy Smith wrote:
>
> [this, and prior messages on ModelGo are personal capacity not as 
> Board member]
>
> 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):
>
> 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.
>
> In the USA, the copyright permissions are: reproduce, distribute, 
> prepare derivative works, display
>
> Outside of the USA, the patent permissions are (via Berne): reproduce, 
> broadcast, communicate, adapt, arrange, recite, translate
>
> In the USA, the patent permissions are: make, use, sell, offer for 
> sale, import.
>
> Outside of the USA, the patent permissions are similar in scope, but 
> sometimes use dispose or other language rather than the above.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> On 3/22/2025 7:53 PM, Moming Duan wrote:
>> Dear OSI Community,
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>> —————— Major Updates to Previous Submission
>>
>> # Add conditions for distributing outputs as a dataset.
>> # Remove the *"Third-Party Material"* and *"Governing Law and Dispute 
>> Resolution"* sections.
>> # Remove the annex.
>> # Eliminate redundant clauses from the license.
>> # Clarify definitions of *“Distribution",**“Licensor",**"Licensed 
>> Materials”,* and *"Output”.*
>> # Remove definitions of *"License"* and *"Open Source Software”.*
>> # Refine license clauses based on feedback from the previous round of 
>> OSI review.
>>
>> —————— License Introduction
>>
>> *License Name*:ModelGo Attribution-OpenSource License
>> *Version*: 2.0
>> *Short Identifier: *MG-BY-OS-2.0
>> *Copyleft:*No
>> *Legacy or New*: New License
>> *Drafted By Lawyer*: Yes, Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP
>> *Approved or Used by Projects*: No
>>
>> *License URL*:https://ids.nus.edu.sg/modelgo-mg-by-os.html
>> *Introduction and Video*:https://www.modelgo.li/
>>
>> *Overview*:
>>
>> 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 copyleft license in the 
>> ModelGo family, requiring that the original license and 
>> attribution be provided when distributing the original Licensed 
>> Materials or Derivative Materials (Licensed Materials and Derivative 
>> Materials aredefined in Clause 1). A statement of modification is 
>> required, if applicable. 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.
>> (Green content represents the differences from MG-BY-2.0 license)
>>
>> *Complies with OSD:*
>> *
>> *
>> OSD 3 Derived Works — MG-BY-OS-2.0 Clause 2.1 (a) grants copyright 
>> and patent rights to create derivatives.
>> OSD 5 and OSD 6 — No discrimination clause is included in MG-BY-OS-2.0.
>> OSD 9 License Must Not Restrict Other Software — No such restriction 
>> is included in MG-BY-OS-2.0.
>>
>> *The Gap to Fill:*
>> 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):
>>
>>   * OSS licenses, e.g., Apache-2.0, MIT
>>   * Open responsible AI licenses (OpenRAILs),
>>     e.g., CreativeML-OpenRAIL-M, OpenRAIL++
>>   * Proprietary Licenses, e.g., Llama2, Llama3
>>
>>
>> However, not all licenses are well-suited for model publishing.
>>
>> *Why not use OSS licenses? *
>> 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.
>>
>> *Why not use OpenRAILs? *
>> Recently, Responsible AI Licenses (https://www.licenses.ai/) 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.
>>
>> *Why not use Llama2 or Llama3 Licenses?*
>> These licenses are proprietary licenses that are not reusable. 
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> *Comparison with Existing OSI-Approved Licenses:*
>> 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
>>
>> # MG-BY-OS-2.0 defines licensed materials and derivative works 
>> differently from Apache-2.0, tailoring them to models.
>> # MG-BY-OS-2.0 Clause 2.2(b) includes conditions regarding model output.
>> # MG-BY-OS-2.0 can govern the remote access (e.g., chatbot) scenario.
>> # MG-BY-OS-2.0 is a copyleft license and requires the source code to be 
>> provided during redistribution.
>>
>> 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. 🤗
>>
>>
>> Best,
>> Moming
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>> License-review at lists.opensource.org
>> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-review_lists.opensource.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
> License-review at lists.opensource.org
> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-review_lists.opensource.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-review_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20250514/c4c1887b/attachment-0001.htm>