this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2025
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I don‘t know of a single
from China. China doesn‘t seem very keen on open source as a whole to be honest. That is unless they can monetize on open source projects from outside of China. Their companies love doing that.
Your ignorance is not a valid point.
https://techwireasia.com/2025/07/china-open-source-ai-models-global-rankings/
DeepSeek the software is open source.
same with qwen, ernie, minimax, and kimi
Unless the dataset, weighting, and every aspect is open source, it's not truly open source, as the OSI defines it.
The dataset is massive and impractical to share, and a dataset may include bias and conditions for use, and the dataset is a completely separate thing from the code. You would always want to use a dataset that fit your needs. From known sources. It's easy to collect data. Programming a good AI algorithm not so much.
Saying a model isn't open source because collected data isn't included is like saying a music player isn't open source, because it doesn't include any music.
EDIT!!!
TheGrandNagus is however right about the source code missing, investigating further, the actual source code is not available. and the point about OSI (Open Source Initiative) is valid, because OSI originally coined the term and defined the meaning of Open Source, so their description is per definition the only correct one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
no,
your changing the definition of open source software. which has been around a lot longer than AI has.
source code is what defines open source.
what deepseek has is open weights. they publish the results of their learning only. not the source that produced it.
https://techwireasia.com/2025/07/china-open-source-ai-models-global-rankings/
And:
I've read similar descriptions in other articles, seems your claim is false.
can you show me the actual source code?
the human readable code, not the weights.
The (claimed) source:
https://github.com/deepseek-ai
Investigating further I can see it is NOT open source. All the articles saying that are lying, probably unknowingly just as I believed the claim, they probably did too, and I'm NOT being sarcastic!
I have no idea why publishing these "weights" is considered open source, it has nothing to do with Open Source as defined by OSI, which I believe has a historical right to the term.
I apologize.
forgive my snarkiness. its usually the quickest way to this realization.
Oh I didn't detect any snarkiness, just you being to the point, which is a thing I appreciate.
But I'm often considered impolite. I think it's a culture thing.
But I must admit I am annoyed by you contradicting me, but it's even worse that you were right.
I find that generally offensive.
So I'll go sulk in corner for a few minutes. 😜 😋 🤣
Still debatable, the weights are the code. That's a bit like saying "X software is not open source because it has equations but it doesn't include the proofs that they're derived from".
what has been published by deep seek is the music, not the software, the music.
In the same way as an Excel spreadsheet containing a crosstab of analytics results is "the code."
It's processed input for a visualization/playback mechanism, not source code.
every major chinese model is open source
They are releasing lots of open weight models. If you want to run AI stuff on your own hardware, Chinese models are generally the best.
They also don't care about copyright law/licensing, so going forward they will be training their models on more material than Western companies are legally able to.