The Linux Foundation has released the OpenMDW-1.1 licence – a unified legal framework for distributing open AI models. Nvidia will adopt it for several of its model families going forward.
What OpenMDW covers
“Open Model, Data and Weights” bundles everything around an AI model into a single licence: architecture, weights and parameters, code, documentation and training data – with just one LICENSE file in the repository instead of a complicated licensing patchwork. The licence builds on the Open Source Initiative’s ten principles, including free redistribution, source availability, derived works and no discrimination.
Nvidia joins in
Nvidia plans to use OpenMDW-1.1 for future versions of its open model families Cosmos, Isaac GR00T, Ising and Nemotron – spanning agentic AI, robotics, quantum computing and simulation. The licence grew out of the “Model Openness Framework”, which uses a three-tier system to define when a model is truly open – not just available with restrictions.
Source: Linux Foundation.
