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Licensing: Open Weights vs Open Source
🌐 The Open Source AI Space⏱ 7 min⭐ 50 BASE XP
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
| License | Commercial Use | Modify? | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apache 2.0 | ✅ Unrestricted | ✅ Yes | Mistral Large 3, Gemma 4, Qwen 3 |
| MIT | ✅ Unrestricted | ✅ Yes | DeepSeek-V3, DeepSeek-R1 |
| Llama Community | ⚠️ Restricted >700M MAU | ✅ Yes | Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B, Llama 3.2 |
| Research Only | ❌ No | ✅ Yes | Some 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
KNOWLEDGE CHECK
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Which license allows fully unrestricted commercial use with no user-count limits?
Llama Community License
Apache 2.0
Creative Commons
GPL v3