Re: Proposal -- Interpretation of DFSG on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models

Timo Röhling <[email protected]> Mon, 21 Apr 2025 10:50:49 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.vote
Organization	The Debian Project
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hi,

* M. Zhou <[email protected]> [2025-04-19 13:56]:
>===============================================================================
>Brief Background, Definition, Scope, and Purpose of the Proposal
>===============================================================================
>
>AI software grows more and more popular, becoming a notable part of the
>software ecosystem. This trend reveals some new questions and challenges,
>especially in the interpretation of the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)
>on pre-trained AI models, urging the Debian Project to revisit its
>interpretation of the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) in the context of
>AI software and models.
>
>A pre-trained "AI model" is usually stored on disk in binary formats designed
>for numerical arrays, as a "model checkpoint" or "state dictionary", which is
>essentially a collection of matrices and vectors, holding the learned
>information from the training data or simulator. When the user make use of such
>file, it is usually loaded by an inference program, which performs numerical
>computations to produce outputs based on the learned information in the model.
>Please refer to the appendix for more background information about AI.
>
>This proposal focuses on one interpretation of the DFSG on a particular type of
>pre-trained AI models, that (1) is released under DFSG-compliant free software
>licenses like MIT/Expat, Apache-2.0, etc, and satisfies any of (2) and (3)
>below -- (2) is trained on data or simulator that is private, proprietary, or
>inaccessible to the public; (3) does not provide the original training program.
>To avoid creating new terminologies, we will refer to this type of file as "AI
>models released under open source license without original training data or
>program" without any abbreviation. Such models are referred to as "Open
>Weights" in some circumstances (See: https://opensource.org/ai/open-weights).
>
>The purpose of this proposal is to reach a community consensus on how we should
>treat and handle the described type of AI models, which is an inevitable issue
>in the future. If necessary, I can work with the Debian Policy Team to
>incorporate the GR result into appropriate sections of the Debian Policy (e.g.,
>in Section 10 "Files").
>
>| Note: While nowadays people use "AI" to refer to LLMs, it is a very broad term
>|   that covers much more than language models. AI models apart from language
>|   models must be considered as well, such as computer vision models, audio
>|   recognition models, etc.
>
>| Note: If condition (1) is not satisfied, it is usually seen "non-free" in the
>|   context of Debian community and no voting is needed. In addition, if
>|   everything (including but not limited to the model itself, training data
>|   training program, and inference program) is released under DFSG-compliant
>|   licenses, that again needs no voting.
>
>| Note: Traditional software parts, like a Python script or a C++ program, are
>|   out of the scope of this proposal since that is a well-defined case. For
>|   example, a deep learning framework or inference software written in
>|   Python or C++, i.e., the program that runs the AI models, is out of the
>|   scope of this proposal.
>
>
>===============================================================================
>Proposal A: "AI models released under open source license without original
>            training data or program" are not seen as DFSG-compliant.
>===============================================================================
>
>The "AI models released under open source license without original training
>data or program", a particular type of files as explained above, are not seen
>as DFSG-compliant. Hence, they can not be included in the "main" section of the
>Debian archive. This proposal does not specify whether the "non-free" section
>of Debian archive can include those files.
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Appendix
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Inevitably there may be some terminology and/or backgrounds that is not
>well-known or well-understood by the general public. Please refer to the
>appendices for more information. If you cannot find relevant information to
>answer your question, please consult a human professional -- or an LLM.
>
>See appendix A for detailed rationale of this proposal.
>See appendix B for background and comments about current AI software.
>See appendix C for some related previous efforts and discussions.
>See appendix D for comments on potential implications of this proposal.
>
>[Appendix A] https://salsa.debian.org/lumin/gr-ai-dfsg/-/blob/main/AppendixA.txt
>[Appendix B] https://salsa.debian.org/lumin/gr-ai-dfsg/-/blob/main/AppendixB.txt
>[Appendix C] https://salsa.debian.org/lumin/gr-ai-dfsg/-/blob/main/AppendixC.txt
>[Appendix D] https://salsa.debian.org/lumin/gr-ai-dfsg/-/blob/main/AppendixD.txt
>
>
>Disclaimer
>----------
>
>We acknowledge that releasing useful AI models under permissive licenses like
>MIT/Expat and Apache-2.0 is a generous act from the original authors due to
>huge costs, and it is a great contribution to the software ecosystem and the
>society. We sincerely respect the respective authors' work.  On the other hand,
>DFSG sets a pretty high standard on software that can be included in the Debian
>distribution, which means the GR may lead to some results that not everybody
>agrees with.  Nevertheless, we appreciate your understanding of the mission of
>the Debian project -- to create a free operating system, where the "free" means
>"software freedom".

I sponsor this GR proposal.


Cheers
Timo

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