[License-review] For Approval: OpenMDW License Agreement, versions 1.1 (OpenMDW-1.1)

Thu Aug 13 17:00:51 UTC 2026

To the OSI License Review Committee:

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
https://github.com/OpenMDW/OpenMDW (1.1/ folder) and at
https://openmdw.ai/license/1-1/.

The information required for the review process is as follows.

1. License name and version

OpenMDW License Agreement, version 1.1 (“OpenMDW-1.1”).

2. License steward and submitter

Steward: The Linux Foundation

Submitter: Mike Dolan, a natural person, SVP, Legal & Strategic Programs,
The Linux Foundation, submitting on behalf of the steward.

3. OSD compliance

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 would also apply to the previous OpenMDW-1.0 version.

4. Gap filled by the license

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.

As a related motivating factor, real-world experience among academic
researchers who desired to adopt the Model Openness Framework (MOF)
<https://lfaidata.foundation/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/01/05_White_paper_MOF_Specification.pdf>
for their AI model distributions—but who were not deeply familiar with open
source software and other open content licensing practices—found 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.

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.

5. Comparison to the most similar OSI-approved licenses

The most similar OSI-approved licenses are the MIT License and the Apache
License 2.0.

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.

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.

6. Legal review

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. There are 8+ organizations we're aware of 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 is
extending 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 same review could include version 1.0 if the
review committee prefers to include both.

7. Projects currently using the license. As they are very similar in their
license terms, I have included adoption examples for both OpenMDW-1.1 and
OpenMDW-1.0.

   - NVIDIA has adopted OpenMDW-1.1 for 19 of its models, including Cosmos
   <https://huggingface.co/collections/nvidia/cosmos3>, Ising
   <https://huggingface.co/nvidia/Ising-Calibration-1.5-31B-BF16>, and
   Nemotron
   <https://huggingface.co/nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Ultra-550B-A55B-BF16>
   open model families. More recently, NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang announced that
   its latest Alpamayo models
   <https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7490422036767395841/>
   are using OpenMDW-1.1 as well.
   - Arcee AI has moved 6 of its Trinity models
   <https://www.arcee.ai/blog/trinity-is-moving-to-openmdw-1-1> to
   OpenMDW-1.1
   - Poolside has adopted OpenMDW-1.1 for its Laguna S 2.1 models
   <https://poolside.ai/blog/introducing-laguna-s-2-1>
   - BAAI's OpenSeek Small model
   <https://huggingface.co/BAAI/OpenSeek-Small-v1#license> was also
   licensed under OpenMDW-1.0.
   - ByteDance has published its entire series of Seed-X models
   <https://huggingface.co/ByteDance-Seed/Seed-X-Instruct-7B#license> under
   OpenMDW-1.0.
   - Hyper3labs has published its hyper3-clip-v0.5
   <https://huggingface.co/hyper3labs/hyper3-clip-v0.5/blob/main/LICENSE>
   under OpenMDW-1.0.
   - IBM and Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation published
   SaltMarsh
   <https://huggingface.co/rosielickorish/ibm-geospatial-saltmarsh-uk-rgbdem-extent-2m>
   models under OpenMDW-1.0.
   - We are also aware of other projects that will use OpenMDW-1.1 in the
   future.

8. SPDX and other identifiers

OpenMDW-1.1 is not yet on the SPDX License List. The predecessor version is
listed under the SPDX license identifier OpenMDW-1.0
<https://spdx.org/licenses/OpenMDW-1.0.html>. 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.

Both Steve Winslow (CC’d, 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.

Regards,

Mike Dolan

SVP, Legal & Strategic Programs

The Linux Foundation

LICENSE.OpenMDW-1.1 (plain text)
---
OpenMDW License Agreement, version 1.1 (OpenMDW-1.1)

By exercising rights granted to you under this agreement, you accept and
agree
to its terms.

As used in this agreement, "Model Materials" means the materials provided to
you under this agreement, consisting of: (1) one or more machine learning
models (including architecture and parameters); and (2) all related
artifacts
(including associated data, documentation and software) that are provided to
you hereunder.

Subject to your compliance with this agreement, permission is hereby
granted,
free of charge, to deal in the Model Materials without restriction,
including
under all copyright, patent, database, and trade secret rights included or
embodied therein.

If you distribute any portion of the Model Materials, you shall retain in
your
distribution (1) a copy of this agreement, and (2) all copyright notices and
other notices of origin included in the Model Materials that are applicable
to
your distribution.

If you file, maintain, or voluntarily participate in a lawsuit against any
person or entity asserting that the Model Materials directly or indirectly
infringe any patent or copyright, then all rights and grants made to you
hereunder are terminated, unless that lawsuit was in response to a
corresponding lawsuit first brought against you.

This agreement does not impose any restrictions or obligations with respect
to
any use, modification, or sharing of any outputs generated by using the
Model
Materials.

THE MODEL MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR THE
ABSENCE OF LATENT OR OTHER DEFECTS OR ERRORS, WHETHER OR NOT DISCOVERABLE,
ALL
TO THE GREATEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.

YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR (1) CLEARING RIGHTS OF OTHER PERSONS THAT MAY
APPLY TO THE MODEL MATERIALS OR ANY USE THEREOF, INCLUDING WITHOUT
LIMITATION
ANY PERSON'S COPYRIGHTS OR OTHER RIGHTS INCLUDED OR EMBODIED IN THE MODEL
MATERIALS; (2) OBTAINING ANY NECESSARY CONSENTS, PERMISSIONS OR OTHER RIGHTS
REQUIRED FOR ANY USE OF THE MODEL MATERIALS; OR (3) PERFORMING ANY DUE
DILIGENCE OR UNDERTAKING ANY OTHER INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE MODEL MATERIALS
OR
ANYTHING INCORPORATED OR EMBODIED THEREIN.

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE PROVIDERS OF THE MODEL MATERIALS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM,
DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR
OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE MODEL MATERIALS,
THE
USE THEREOF OR OTHER DEALINGS THEREIN.
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