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

[Shuji Sado]

Richard-san,

I can agree with Dolan-san’s basic idea of treating a single model release
as one unit. At the same time, I agree with your point that the OpenMDW
text itself does not define that unit.

At this point, I am not convinced that this necessarily rises to an OSD 9
issue. Nor do I yet think that copyright assertions should be removed
altogether as a termination trigger.
However, I do think the scope of termination should be clear to the
licensee in advance. Would it therefore make sense to limit the Model
Materials to a specific release, or to a set of materials explicitly
identified by the licensor?


--
Shuji Sado
Chairman, Open Source Group Japan
https://opensource.jp/
English blog: https://shujisado.org/
Japanese blog: https://shujisado.com/


2026/8/17 8:38 Richard Fontana via License-review <
license-review at lists.opensource.org>:

> On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 1:09 PM Michael Dolan
> <mdolan at linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> >
> > Treating the choice of a single license for a package of components
> released together as an OSD 9 problem seems challenging to me.
>
> OpenMDW doesn't say the Model Materials have to be released together,
> for one thing. In a separate response I pointed out the possibility of
> splitting up the Model Materials across differently hosted
> repositories in a way that might deprive the licensee of adequate
> understanding of the risk theoretically imposed by the defensive
> termination provision.
>
>
>
> I do not think OSD 9 is relevant here, honestly. OSD 9 prohibits a
> license from restricting other software distributed with the licensed
> software. Specifically, it says:
> >
> >
> >
> > The license must not place restrictions on other software that is
> distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must
> not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be
> open source software.
> >
> >
> >
> > A simple example would be a license insisting that other programs on the
> same medium be open source. The Model Materials are not other software
> distributed along with the licensed work. They are the licensed work –
> they’re packaged and built to work together. The premise that a single
> license covering a bundle of components violated OSD 9 would implicate most
> software package releases I can think of. Every software distribution is a
> bundle of conceptually separate components under one license: code,
> documentation, build tooling, test data. The OSD has never required
> per-component granularity in the grant or the remedy.
> [ . . . ]
> > Regarding separateness: a model release functions as a unit. The weights
> are not usable without the architecture, configuration, and tokenizer, and
> the documentation describes that specific release. Many apps bundle
> presentation code, backend logic code, SQLite for data, and security
> libraries into a release.
>
> I think this is right, but OpenMDW doesn't talk at all about "a
> release" as some sort of clear act that can be pointed to. It doesn't
> say that the things making up the Model Materials must be "packaged
> and built to work together". Perhaps it could? In another response I
> noted that Model Materials can include more than one model, which
> means more than one model release (including multiple sets of
> materials related in some sense to those models). By definition, I
> think, if you have more than one model, you don't have a unit that is
> packaged and built to work together. For example you might have a
> copyright claim against model A (hosted on Hugging Face) leading to
> termination of licenses to documentation for possibly-unrelated models
> B and C (published on GitHub repositories or websites, say, or maybe
> this even extends to things like arxiv papers). I know this is
> probably not what was intended or contemplated. Again, a way to
> address this might be for the licensor to clearly identify all the
> elements of a specific "release". My basic thought here is that the
> copyright assertion termination feature would be at least somewhat
> less problematic if it were clearer in principle what the Model
> Materials is supposed to cover in any one licensing instance. If, for
> example, you intend Model Materials to be truly open ended - anything
> the licensor ever releases under OpenMDW, now or in the future - that
> strikes me as a radical idea, but possibly worth considering by the
> OSI as a valuable evolution of open source licensing. But I contend
> that the meaning of Model Materials in the current license is unclear.
>
> Richard
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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/20260819/097178f8/attachment.htm>