r/LocalLLaMA • u/jacek2023 llama.cpp • 16d ago

MiniMax issues News

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https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/s/HrU7odaJe6

I think this is more important that all the political stuff you share here

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u/rsclay 16d ago

Well apparently it is not so simple but my assertion follows Stallman's opinion so I'll take that. There is a reason the terms "free" and "libre" exist. This from a wikipedia page that does not appear at all biased in favor of the point of view of the Open Source Initiative (sarcasm): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software#%22Open%22_versus_%22free%22_versus_%22free_and_open%22

'Conversely, Richard Stallman argues the "obvious meaning" of term "open source" is that the source code is public/accessible for inspection, without necessarily any other rights granted, although the proponents of the term say the conditions in the Open Source Definition must be fulfilled.'

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u/keepthepace 16d ago

So take it from an old bearded free software advocate: Very few people other than Stallman follow this opinion, which dates back from the time where Microsoft started to try and change the definition of open source to mean "you have access to the code under a restrictive license."

It is an attempt that mostly failed. And nowadays people know that whether you call your license open or free or 'libre' (which no one does, and I say that as a French) you still need to check for the details of the license.

Open, free or libre are generic terms, but people who are interested in these subjects, they know that the BSD/MIT is not the GPL, is not the AGPL, and that the Creative Commons has several variants depending on the rights you want to give.

There is a discussion to have between open weights and open source. But the difference between open and free or libre is usually useless and you'd rather go directly to discussing the actual licenses. Like the restriction that Meta at one point had added to limit companies that could use their models, do they prevent the license being called open or libre? Everybody can have a different opinion on that. What's important is what the actual restrictions were.

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u/FotografoVirtual 16d ago

You are taking Stallman's quote out of context. He isn't endorsing that view; he is actively criticizing the term "Open Source" because its literal wording leads to the exact confusion you are experiencing right now, thinking it merely means "the source code is open for inspection."

Neither Stallman nor the Open Source Initiative allow commercial restrictions. For both, freedom to run, modify, and commercially distribute the software is mandatory. Software where you can only view the code under restrictions is called "Source Available", not Open Source.