Linux Foundation wades into AI as Open Model Initiative joins ranks

The Open Model Initiative (OMI) has joined orgs under the Linux Foundation's umbrella as it continues to push open standards for training and developing AI models.

The OMI was launched earlier this year with an initial membership comprising Invoke, ComfyOrg, and Civitai. Its lofty goals, aimed at offering an alternative path to more proprietary AI tech, involve shared standards, a governance framework, and open source models that are at least as good as the proprietary alternatives.

At its launch, the OMI said, "From the beginning, we have believed that the right way to build these AI models is with open licenses. Open licenses allow creatives and businesses to build on each other's work, facilitate research, and create new products and services without restrictive licensing constraints.

"Unfortunately, recent image and video models have been released under restrictive, non-commercial license agreements, which limit the ownership of novel intellectual property and offer compromised capabilities that are unresponsive to community needs."

As far as open source is concerned, the OMI expected everything to be licensed with an approved Open Source Initiative license and "developed with open source and transparent principles."

It will be interesting to see how the OMI's ideals fare against some of the companies with a vested interest in the AI marketplace, notably Microsoft, which is a platinum member of the Linux Foundation. Considering the company's desire to impose generative AI on nearly every aspect of a user's computing life, we're sure it will welcome an organization "focused on training and developing AI models under irrevocable open licenses without deletion clauses or recurring costs for access."

Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, said, "The Linux Foundation is deeply committed to fostering open and collaborative development around AI."

"With the Open Model Initiative, we are taking a significant step towards making AI accessible and beneficial for everyone, building an environment where creativity and progress in AI can thrive without barriers."

One of the reasons for the OMI's existence is as a response to licensing decisions that have resulted in nervousness around enterprise adoption. Developing true open source, capable, and ethical generative AI models is its primary goal. Being hosted by the Linux Foundation will do no harm to those ambitions.

However, even with the support of the Linux Foundation, the OMI still has a way to go before it can declare parity with some of the more restrictively licensed proprietary models. ®