Linux Foundation Welcomes the Open Model Initiative to Promote Openly Licensed AI Models

New initiative will foster the development of free to use, open and ethical AI models.

SAN FRANCISCO — August 12, 2024 — Today, the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, is excited to welcome the Open Model Initiative (OMI) to the Linux Foundation community. The OMI aims to foster the creation and adoption of high-quality, openly licensed AI models that push creativity forward, are free to use, and meet the growing demands for open source AI solutions.

Established in response to licensing decisions that create barriers for enterprise adoption, OMI is focused on training and developing AI models under irrevocable open licenses without deletion clauses or recurring costs for access. Formed through a joint effort by founding organizations Invoke, CivitAI, and Comfy Org, and with widespread support from community players like Wand and Sentient Foundation, the OMI is now an official open source foundation hosted by the Linux Foundation and will be governed by a community-led Steering Committee.

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

The primary objective of the OMI is to facilitate the development of generative AI models that are true open source, capable, and ethical. To achieve this, the initiative will:

• Establish a governance framework and working groups for collaborative community development.
• Conduct a survey to gather feedback on future model research and training from the open-source community.
• Create shared standards to enhance model interoperability and metadata practices.
• Develop a transparent dataset for training and begin captioning.
• Complete an alpha test model for targeted red teaming.
• Release an alpha version of the model with fine-tuning scripts to the community by the end of the year.

"We believe open source is the best path forward to ensure that AI benefits everyone, " said Kent Keirsey, CEO and Founder of Invoke. "Through OMI's commitment to open source development under the Linux Foundation, we believe the collective will deliver high-quality, competitive models with open licenses that push AI creativity forward, are free to use, and meet the needs of the community."

The OMI welcomes individuals and organizations passionate about open source and AI to get involved. For more information about participating in working groups or contributing to the development of open AI models, please visit the OMI Discord and GitHub.

About the Linux Foundation

The Linux Foundation is the world’s leading home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards, and data. Linux Foundation projects are critical to the world’s infrastructure, including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, ONAP, OpenChain, OpenSSF, PyTorch, RISC-V, SPDX, Zephyr, and more. The Linux Foundation focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users, and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. For more information, please visit us at linuxfoundation.org