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Licensing: Open Weights vs Open Source

🌐 The Open Source AI Space⏱ 7 min⭐ 50 BASE XP⌨ HANDS-ON LAB

Understanding AI Model Licenses

Not all "open" models are truly open source. The distinction between open weights and open source is critical for commercial use.

License Comparison

LicenseCommercial UseModify?Examples
Apache 2.0✅ Unrestricted✅ YesMistral Large 3, Gemma 4, Qwen 3
MIT✅ Unrestricted✅ YesDeepSeek-V3, DeepSeek-R1
Llama Community⚠️ Restricted >700M MAU✅ YesLlama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B, Llama 3.2
Research Only❌ No✅ YesSome academic models
⚠️ Warning: Meta's Llama 3.1 / 3.3 models require a separate commercial license if your product exceeds 700 million monthly active users, and have geographical restrictions (notably Europe).

The Ecosystem Map

  • Meta: Llama 3.3 (70B), Llama 3.1 (405B/70B/8B), and Llama 3.2 vision/edge family
  • Mistral AI: European sovereignty, full Apache 2.0 stack
  • DeepSeek: Chinese lab, MIT license, reasoning breakthroughs
  • Alibaba (Qwen): Dense + MoE variants, multilingual excellence
  • Google (Gemma): Edge-optimized, Apache 2.0, multimodal
⌨ HANDS-ON LABVerify Open Source AI Definition (OSAID) Compliance
⭐ +150 XP

Compare model weights licenses (e.g. Apache 2.0 vs Meta Community License) using Python huggingface_hub API.

1Extract license and usage restriction flags from the model card via python.
lab-sandbox — simulated environment
INFINITY LAB SANDBOX v2.6 — simulated shell
Type the command for the current objective. Helpers: "hint", "solution", "clear".
$
OBJECTIVE 1 / 1 — type "hint" if stuck
KNOWLEDGE CHECK
QUERY 1 // 2
Which license allows fully unrestricted commercial use with no user-count limits?
Llama Community License
Apache 2.0
Creative Commons
GPL v3