TE
TechEcho
Home24h TopNewestBestAskShowJobs
GitHubTwitter
Home

TechEcho

A tech news platform built with Next.js, providing global tech news and discussions.

GitHubTwitter

Home

HomeNewestBestAskShowJobs

Resources

HackerNews APIOriginal HackerNewsNext.js

© 2025 TechEcho. All rights reserved.

Consensus and the Open Source AI Definition

5 pointsby rettichschnidi7 months ago

1 comment

samj7 months ago
Karsten correctly called the consensus on that thread, including my own view as one of the folks named in the article, that accepting less-than-open &quot;public&quot; datasets like the dumps of the Internet made available by the Common Crawl Foundation may have been an acceptable compromise to cast a wider net in recognition of AI industry norms. I no longer believe that to be the case, accepting the Open Source Definition (OSD) author Bruce Perens&#x27; view that the data IS the source, on the basis that it is what you need to modify in order to freely change the output of the system.<p>The OSI&#x27;s position that ANY data is acceptable has shifted the Overton window of Open Source, and categorising it into open, public, obtainable, and unshareable non-public data, only to then accept all of them, is a form of doublespeak appearing to maintain openness while accommodating even the most restrictive data. We don&#x27;t negotiate with terrorists.<p>Indeed, there are two dimensions to &quot;Open&quot; AI systems which &quot;can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose&quot; (per The Open Definition): openness, which is already well-covered by the Open Source Definition, and completeness, which is covered implicitly — after all, AI systems are software — but which would need to be specified in approved frameworks that could be self-applied like the MOF (were a new Class 0 to be created requiring open data licenses rather than &quot;any license or unlicensed&quot; like Class I).<p>In other words, the Open Source Definition (OSD) covers openness but not completeness (at least not explicitly, which is arguably a bug the community may want to fix in a future version so it covers both). The MOF covers completeness but not openness. The OSI&#x27;s proposed OSAID covers neither, so any vendor using it to open-wash closed systems as Open Source AI rightly deserves ridicule as it is patently ridiculous.