THE OPEN SOURCE AI DEFINITION 1.0

We have released the first stable version of the Definition.

Read version 1.0

What’s Open Source AI?

Following the same idea behind Open Source Software,
an Open Source AI is a system made available under terms that grant users the freedoms to:

Use the system for any purpose and
without having to ask for permission.

Precondition to exercise these freedoms is to have access to
the preferred form to make modifications to the system, and to the means to use it.

Study how the system works and
understand how its results were created.

Precondition to exercise these freedoms is to have access to
the preferred form to make modifications to the system, and to the means to use it.

Modify the system for any purpose,
including to change its output.

Precondition to exercise these freedoms is to have access to
the preferred form to make modifications to the system, and to the means to use it.

Share the system for others to use with
or without modifications, for any purpose.

Precondition to exercise these freedoms is to have access to
the preferred form to make modifications to the system, and to the means to use it.

Benefits of Open Source AI

Transparency & Safety

Open Source AI provides information essential for auditing systems and to mitigate bias, ensures accountability and transparency of data sources, and accelerates AI safety research.

Competition & Polyculture

Open Source AI makes more models available, spurs innovation and quality due to increased competition and tackles AI monoculture by providing more stakeholders access to foundational technology.

Diverse Applications

Open Source AI gives developers access to resources crucial for developing context-specific, localized applications that are representative of cultural and linguistic diversity and allow for model aligned with different value systems.

Read the white paper

The Open Source Initiative and Open Future have taken a significant step toward addressing this challenge by releasing this white paper. The document is the culmination of a global co-design process, enriched by insights from a vibrant two-day workshop held in Paris in October 2024.

Read the white paper

Why Open Source AI needs a definition?

Open Source Frontier

The traditional view of Open Source code and licenses when applied to AI components are not sufficient to guarantee the freedoms to use, study, share and modify the systems.

Informing Regulators

Government regulations have begun in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere. Communities need a common understanding to educate policy makers.

Combat Openwashing

Companies are calling AI systems “Open Source” even though their licenses contain restrictions that go against the accepted principles and freedoms of Open Source.

Who’s behind the Open Source AIDefinition

View all Endorsers

Overall process

0Supporting Organizations

0Supporting Individuals

0Co-designers

0Systems reviewed

Representation in the co-design process

0Nationalities

0People Of Color

0Global South

0Femme, Trans, & Nonbinary

Co-design

2023 – 2024

In 2023, we started the online and in-person activities around the world.

Research

2022 – 2023

Alongside AI experts from various fields we produced a webinars.

Endorsements

2024 – 2025

Late 2024 into 2025, the OSI is
gathering endorsements from
various individuals and
organizations, including Mozilla,
Suse, Eleuther AI, Ai2, Eclipse
Foundation, and the OpenInfra
Foundation, among many others.

Which AI systems comply with the OSAID 1.0?

As part of our validation and testing of the OSAID, the volunteers checked whether the Definition could be used to evaluate if AI systems provided the freedoms expected. The list of models that passed the Validation phase are:

Pythia (Eleuther AI), OLMo (AI2), Amber and CrystalCoder (LLM360), and T5 (Google).

There are a couple of others that were analyzed and would probably pass if they changed their licenses/legal terms: BLOOM (BigScience), Starcoder2 (BigCode), Falcon (TII).

Those that have been analyzed and don’t pass because they lack required components and/or their legal agreements are incompatible with the Open Source principles:

Llama2 (Meta), Grok (X/Twitter), Phi-2 (Microsoft), Mixtral (Mistral).

These results should be seen as part of the definitional process, a learning moment; they’re not certifications of any kind. OSI will continue to validate only legal documents, and will not validate or review individual AI systems, just as it does not validate or review software projects.

If you are wondering about Open Weights models, please refer to our dedicated page.

collaborating.

How to participate

There are many ways to get involved:

Open Source AI Definition Governance

Governance for the Open Source AI Definition is provided by the OSI Board of Directors. The OSI board members have expertise in business, legal, and open source software development, as well as experience across a range of commercial, public sector, and non-profit organizations. Formal progress reports including achievements, budget updates, and next steps are provided monthly by the Program Lead for advice and guidance as part of regular Board business. Additionally, informal updates on the outcomes of key meetings and milestones are provided via email to the Board as required.

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