It depends on what those magic numbers are for. If they represent pure data, and it's obvious what the data is (perhaps a bitmap image), then sure, it's open source.
If the magic values are some kind of microcode or firmware, or something else that is executed in some way, then no, it is not really open source.
Even algorithms can be open source in spirit but closed source in practice. See ECDSA. The NSA has never revealed in any verifiable way how they came up with the specific curves used in the algorithm, so there is room for doubt that they weren't specifically chosen due to some inherent (but hard to find) weakness.
I don't know a ton about AI, but I gather there are lots of areas in the process of producing a model where they can claim everything is "open source" as a marketing gimmick but in reality, there is no explanation for how certain results were achieved. (Trade secrets, in other words.)
> If the magic values are some kind of microcode or firmware, or something else that is executed in some way, then no, it is not really open source.
To my understanding, the contents of a .safetensors file is purely numerical weights - used by the model defined in MIT-licensed code[0] and described in a technical report[1]. The weights are arguably only really "executed" to the same extent kernel weights of a gaussian blur filter would be, though there is a large difference in scale and effect.
Code is data is code. Fundamentally, they are the same. We treat the two things as distinct categories only for practical convenience. Most of the time, it's pretty clear which is which, but we all regularly encounter situations in which the distinction gets blurry. For example:
- Windows MetaFiles (WMF, EMF, EMF+), still in use (mostly inside MS Office suite) - you'd think they're just another vector image format, i.e. clearly "data", but this one is basically a list of function calls to Windows GDI APIs, i.e. interpreted code.
- Any sufficiently complex XML or JSON config file ends up turning into an ad-hoc Lisp language, with ugly syntax and a parser that's a bug-ridden, slow implementation of a Lisp runtime. People don't realize that the moment they add conditionals and ability to include or refer back to other parts of config, they're more than halfway to a Turing-complete language.
- From the POV of hardware, all native code is executed "to the same extent kernel weighs of a gaussian blur filter" are. In general, all code is just data for the runtime that executes it.
And so on.
Point being, what is code and what is data depends on practical reasons you have to make this distinction in the first place. IMHO, for OSS licensing, when considering the reasons those licenses exist, LLM weights are code.
If the magic values are some kind of microcode or firmware, or something else that is executed in some way, then no, it is not really open source.
Even algorithms can be open source in spirit but closed source in practice. See ECDSA. The NSA has never revealed in any verifiable way how they came up with the specific curves used in the algorithm, so there is room for doubt that they weren't specifically chosen due to some inherent (but hard to find) weakness.
I don't know a ton about AI, but I gather there are lots of areas in the process of producing a model where they can claim everything is "open source" as a marketing gimmick but in reality, there is no explanation for how certain results were achieved. (Trade secrets, in other words.)