Comment by Arcuru
20 hours ago
Personally I really like the normalization of these "Permissively" licensed models that only restrict companies with massive revenues from using them for free.
If you want to use something, and your company makes $240,000,000 in annual revenue, you should probably pay for it.
These are not permissively licensed though, the terms "permissive license" has connotations that pretty much everyone who is into FLOSS understands (same with "open source").
I do not mind having a license like that, my gripe is with using the terms "permissive" and "open source" like that because such use dilutes them. I cannot think of any reason to do that aside from trying to dilute the term (especially when some laws, like the EU AI Act, are less restrictive when it comes to open source AIs specifically).
> I do not mind having a license like that, my gripe is with using the terms "permissive" and "open source" like that because such use dilutes them. I cannot think of any reason to do that aside from trying to dilute the term (especially when some laws, like the EU AI Act, are less restrictive when it comes to open source AIs specifically).
Good. In this case, let it be diluted! These extra "restrictions" don't affect normal people at all, and won't even affect any small/medium businesses. I couldn't care less that the term is "diluted" and that makes it harder for those poor, poor megacorporations. They swim in money already, they can deal with it.
We can discuss the exact threshold, but as long as these "restrictions" are so extreme that they only affect huge megacorporations, this is still "permissive" in my book. I will gladly die on this hill.
> Good. In this case, let it be diluted! These extra "restrictions" don't affect normal people at all,
Yes, they do, and the only reason for using the term “open source” for things whose licensing terms flagrantly defy the Open Source definition is to falsely sell the idea that using the code carries the benefits that are tied to the combination of features that are in the definition and which are lost with only a subset of those features. The freedom to use the software in commercial services is particularly important to end-users that are not interested in running their own services as a guarantee against lock-in and of whatever longevity they are able to pay to have provided even if the original creator later has interests that conflict with offering the software as a commercial service.
If this deception wasn't important, there would be no incentive not to use the more honest “source available for limited uses” description.
> I couldn't care less that the term is "diluted" and that makes it harder
It also makes life harder for individuals and small companies, because this is not Open Source. It's incompatible with Open Source, it can't be reused in other Open Source projects.
Terms have meanings. This is not Open Source, and it will never be Open Source.
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That's fine, but I don't think you should call it open source or call it MIT or even 'modified MIT.' Call it Mistral license or something along those lines
That's probably better, but Modified MIT is pretty descriptive, I read it as "mostly MIT, but with caveats for extreme cases" which is about right, if you already know what the MIT license entails
Whatever name they come up with for a new license will be less useful, because I'll have to figure out that this is what that is
imo this is a hill people need to stop dying on. Open source means "I can see the source" to most of the world. Wishing it meant "very permissively licensed" to everyone is a lost cause.
And honestly it wasn't a good hill to begin with: if what you are talking about is the license, call it "open license". The source code is out in the open, so it is "open source". This is why the purists have lost ground to practical usage.
> imo this is a hill people need to stop dying on.
As someone who was born and raised on FOSS, and still mostly employed to work on FOSS, I disagree.
Open source is what it is today because it's built by people with a spine who stand tall for their ideals even if it means less money, less industry recognition, lots of unglorious work and lots of other negatives.
It's not purist to believe that what built open source so far should remain open source, and not wanting to dilute that ecosystem with things that aren't open source, yet call themselves open source.
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And back in the day, people incorrectly called it "public domain". That was wrong too.
> if what you are talking about is the license, call it "open license".
If you want to build something proprietary, call it something else. "Open Source" is taken.
> Open source means "I can see the source" to most of the world
well we don't really want to open that can of worms though, do we?
I don't agree with ceding technical terms to the rest of the world. I'm increasingly told we need to stop calling cancer detection AI "AI" or "ML" because it is not the 'bad AI' and confuses people.
I guess I'm okay with being intransigent.
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I don't think you get access to source in this case. The release is a binary blob.
You're presently illustrating exactly why Stallman et al were such sticklers about "Free Software."
"Open Source" is nebulous. It reasonably works here, for better or worse.
>"Open Source" is nebulous
No it isn't it is well defined. The only people who find it "nebulous" are people who want the benefits without upholding the obligations.
https://opensource.org/definition-annotated
Free software to me means GPL and associates, so if that is what Stallman was trying to be a stickler for - it worked.
Open source has a well understood meaning, including licenses like MIT and Apache - but not including MIT but only if you make less than $500million dollars, MIT unless you were born on a wednesday, etc.
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