A significant event has occurred in the world of artificial intelligence as the Open Model Initiative (OMI) has officially become part of the ecosystem of the Linux Foundation. This move marks a crucial step towards establishing open standards in the development and training of AI models.
OMI was launched earlier this year with organizations such as Invoke, Comfyorg, and Civitai at its origins. The main objective of OMI is to provide an alternative to proprietary technologies in the field of AI. The initiative aims to develop universal guidelines, implement a governance system, and release models with open-source code that are on par with closed counterparts.
Upon its launch, OMI made a statement emphasizing its core belief: “We have always believed that the correct approach to developing AI models is through open licenses. This allows creative individuals and businesses to build upon each other’s work, contribute to research, and enable the creation of new products and services without licensing restrictions.”
The project founders also highlighted a prevailing issue in the market: “Unfortunately, recently released models for image and video processing have been distributed under restrictive non-profit licenses. These licenses limit rights to new intellectual property and provide insufficient opportunities that do not align with community needs.”
All products developed under the OMI initiative will adhere to licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative. The development process will be transparent and in accordance with open-source code principles.
It will be interesting to see how the ideals of OMI align with the interests of major players in the AI market, particularly Microsoft – a platinum member of the Linux Foundation. With Microsoft’s extensive involvement in integrating generative AI into various user experiences, their response to an organization focused on training and developing AI models under irrevocably open licenses without recurring access costs will be worth observing.
One of the driving factors behind the establishment of OMI is to address the concerns surrounding licensed solutions that have created unease in corporate AI implementations. The support from the Linux Foundation is expected to significantly aid in achieving OMI’s ambitious objectives. Nonetheless, despite having such a prominent supporter, OMI still has a considerable journey ahead before it can claim parity with more restricted proprietary models.