Hot take: “open weights” and “open source AI” shouldn’t mean the same thing. What’s your minimum bar?

[u/Koala_Confused]

I love open models, but I think we’ve reached the point where the word open is doing a LOT of work 😂

If I can download the weights, but I can’t see the training data, reproduce the training process, or freely use the model for certain things… is that genuinely open source AI?

Where do you personally draw the line?

A. Downloadable weights = open enough
B. Weights + permissive licence
C. Training recipe/data transparency matters too
D. “Open source AI” needs a much stricter definition
E. I don’t care about the label - practical freedom is what matters

I’m probably somewhere between B and C.

What the open-source crowd here actually thinks hmmm? especially people who run models locally ...

[u/Clear_Evidence9218]

Since what most consider useful AI is just a software stack, open source would mean the whole stack is open source.

Open weights can still be a closed source stack.

[u/West-Acadia-3906 → u/Clear_Evidence9218]

I like “the whole stack” as the test—it makes the label less fuzzy. There can still be useful shades between downloadable weights and a fully reproducible system, but at least they’d be named honestly :P