# Recognising Open Source "Components" of an AI System

**URL:** <https://discuss.opensource.org/t/recognising-open-source-components-of-an-ai-system/207>\
**Category:** Open Source AI\
**Created:** [February 14, 2024, 6:06pm UTC](https://discuss.opensource.org/t/recognising-open-source-components-of-an-ai-system/207 "2024-02-14T18:06:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 9

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stefano](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/discuss.opensource.org/stefano/32/4_2.png) [@stefano](https://discuss.opensource.org/u/stefano)\
**Post date:** [February 16, 2024, 10:24am UTC](https://discuss.opensource.org/t/recognising-open-source-components-of-an-ai-system/207/9 "2024-02-16T10:24:14Z")

</div>

> [@fontana](#):
>
> The direction this effort seems to be going in is hopelessly impractical, in that no interesting “AI systems” will ever be able to meet the high bar that is being set

let me get the records straight: **there is no bar set, yet**. I’ll voice this more clearly and publicly with the next draft and I’ll get the board to say something official, too. My recommendation to the board will be to reinforce that the organization is **not** going to accept a definition that contains a null set of AI systems, or one that is so totally impractical that only a handful of small, toy, demo AI will fit in it.

> [@fontana](#):
>
> If we want to see something approximating traditional _libre_ software in the machine learning space, let’s focus on _the licenses covering what is released_ as I believe that is where we can practically have some influence.

We tried that approach and it failed rapidly, devolving into a massive amount of objections and responses that includes “well, it depends on…” followed by long arguments about data, models, code, components etc.

> [@fontana](#):
>
> The main problem we face is very simple: machine learning practitioners, and their employers, are using “open source” to mean “public”. The OSI should focus on combatting that problem, and not try to solve a larger problem that is intractable.

As we learned from telling Meta that their model is not “open source”, OSI can’t be effective without a clear definition of what Open Source AI means. We need to clear this hurdle, first.

---

_[View the full topic](https://discuss.opensource.org/t/recognising-open-source-components-of-an-ai-system/207)._