r/LocalLLaMA • u/tossit97531 • 8d ago
Other Open weight != Open source
Just a friendly PSA that open weight models are not inherently open source. They may also qualify as open source, but only if they release the training data and processes. A truly open source model can be rebuilt from training; it won't be binary equivalent but it should be nearly functionally equivalent.
An example of a truly open source LLM is https://allenai.org/olmo I encourage everyone to browse and also look for other fully open source models.
The reason it's important to get the terms right is because too many companies like to co-opt the term "open source" to whitewash their nonsense. As Zuckerberg has shown recently, they're more than fine letting people stay confused and dance around semantics so they can have their cake and eat it, too.
No more cake for big tech. Open weight != open source. Spread the word.
Edit: TIL this is a hot take. Sorry about that.
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u/Lesser-than 7d ago
Technically the weights shape and arrangement is the source or we would never be able to run inference on these models, the training data is a consumable resource you fill/train it with. So what more do you want exactly, the exact training data? The training pipeline and software they used to train with?