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Comment by cube2222 | Hacker News Reader

This looks very nice!

However, I'm worried that a big part of these AI tools built around SD are being posted on GitHub, marketed as open source, accept contributions, but don't have any license.

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Invoke, shared a few weeks ago, uses MIT and adheres to best practices in respecting model licenses/requirements (e.g., agreeing to not use it for hate speech, harming others, etc.)

Automatic on the other hand, seems actively opposed to responding to the calls (cries?) for him to clarify a license for the repo. Closed without being addressed - https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui/issu... 21 days open without response - https://github.com/AUTOMATIC1111/stable-diffusion-webui/issu...

We definitely need more projects who are completely open source (both WebUI and backend) to contribute to the ecosystem, and do so responsibly, adhering to lawful and ethical usage of the work of others.

I noticed that they added a `LICENSE-ModelWeights.txt`! Maybe I should dive into their repo deeper and follow their good practices.

Thanks a lot for the advice! It really helps!

My understanding is the "ethical requirements" of the model licence preclude it from being used in any completely FOSS software, as it would violate freedom 0 by restricting the purposes someone can use the software for.

If he doesn't want to add a license he shouldn't be bullied into adding one.

But then how will big corps be able to steal his free code without any legal repercussions?

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Oops, I thought I've used the MIT License, but it turns out that I have not!

I'm also curious whether I should somehow follow the SD license... But I'm not actually using their codes though...

Any advice will be really appreciated!

IANAL but the SD license is for the model weights and using them. As long as you're not redistributing the weights, I think you're good to use the MIT license.

Thanks for adding the license, very appreciated! This makes me want to take it for a spin much more!

Thank you so much for pointing out the missing-LICENSE-issue as well, that's really a huge miss from me XD.

Wait 'till you find out how they get their training data :P

The AI world does not seem to give a toss about licensing. I admire the spirit of "make stuff first, worry about copyright later", but you at least have to pay lip service to the system if you don't want to get roadkilled when "later" comes too quick.

If you're on GitHub there is a fallback license in the TOS that covers forking and PRs, but you have nothing to protect you if you go off-site for whatever reason. It's there mainly to keep their users from getting sued for just being on GitHub. I don't remember how it interacts with multiple collaborating users all under the same fallback license; you may be able to argue implied license in that case, but implied license is even narrower than the GitHub fallback license.

> If you find software that doesn’t have a license, that generally means you have no permission from the creators of the software to use, modify, or share the software. Although a code host such as GitHub may allow you to view and fork the code, this does not imply that you are permitted to use, modify, or share the software for any purpose.

Source: https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/

Additionally, if you accept a contribution to your repo that doesn't have a license, you as the owner of the repo actually have no right to the contributed code.

This also means that technically speaking, you can't add the license after the fact without contacting (and getting the agreement of) all contributors that have ever contributed to your repo.

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