The open-source world has been struggling for a few years now to understand how to approach large language models (LLMs) and the licensing applied to them. What constitutes "freedom" with respect to a black box filled with numerical weights? The process taken by the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
in the [development](https://lwn.net/Articles/995159/) of its [Open AI
Definition](https://opensource.org/ai/open-source-ai-definition) was controversial at best, as was its output. Now, the
Linux Foundation's Mike Dolan has brought a new license to the OSI for approval. It is called the OpenMDW ("Open Model, Data, and Weights"), and it aims to clarify licensing for the distribution of LLMs and related materials, but consensus is proving hard to find for this license as well.
source & further reading
lwn.net — original article
Go 1.27 released
[$] Debian weighs eight options in vote on LLM usage
Debating the role of large language models in the kernel community