Tencent HY Community License Violates GNU Freedoms and Constitutes Open Washing
Tencent HY Community License Violates GNU Freedoms and Constitutes Open Washing
https://gnu.support/large-language-models-llm/Tencent-HY-Community-License-Violates-GNU-Freedoms-and-Constitutes-Open-Washing-124583.html
The Tencent HY Community License Agreement does not comply with the GNU Project’s four software freedoms, constituting what the author terms "open washing" rather than true open-source software. The license violates Freedom 0 (freedom to run for any purpose) through geographic restrictions excluding the EU, UK, and South Korea, as well as use-case limitations in its Acceptable Use Policy. It fails Freedom 3 (freedom to distribute modified versions) by prohibiting users from using the model’s outputs to improve other AI models, effectively locking developers into Tencent’s ecosystem. Additionally, it undermines Freedom 2 (redistribution) and Freedom 0 by imposing a commercial threshold where users with over 100 million monthly active users must seek discretionary permission from Tencent, thereby punishing success and restricting the irrevocable rights essential to free software.