Update LICENSE · MiniMaxAI/MiniMax-M2.7 at edf8030
Posted by pmttyji@reddit | LocalLLaMA | View on Reddit | 85 comments
RyanLee's(MiniMax) recent tweets for same.
I just updated our license.
For personal use, you’re free to run the software on your own servers for coding, building applications, agents, tools, or integrations, as well as for research, experimentation, and other personal projects.
Don’t worry, bro — go ahead and use it freely!🤗Personal use for software development, and then selling or commercializing it does not require a license.
What we really care about is companies that offer and sell APIs to the public.
Since this is first time drafting a license, it doesn’t cover everything. Thanks for your understanding.Last update:
- Individuals/personal: use it however you want, free.
- - Any company or legal entity: please reach out to api@minimax.io for a license.
We want to support the ecosystem as much as possible — a license doesn't necessarily mean a fee, but it does mean we'd like to talk first.
SPoKK1@reddit
I understand that it’s frustrating for the team (whose effort and talent in training such a good model we all appreciate) to have to compete with the model you developed. However, the legal environment surrounding AI is still uncertain, and it does not support that type of license.
There are three main forms of IP protection: Copyright – protects original human expression. Patents – protect original ideas. Trademark – protects commercial identity.
Neural‑network weights and their outputs do not fit any of these categories. The weights are factual data generated by software and hardware that processed copyrighted and/or public‑domain material. The outputs are the model’s expression to a user’s prompt. Consequently, no one legally owns IP in those items, even if they feel a personal “ownership” of their “child.”
Without proper rights, you cannot grant a license; doing so would be considered fraud. You have two realistic options:
Keep the latest greatest model for internal use and serve it via an API.
There is a fundamental right to free access to information, and—under most reasonable legal interpretations—this approach is likely permissible (perhaps 90 % certain).
Release the model under a permissive license (e.g., MIT or Apache 2.0).
This removes legal friction in the ambiguous environment and avoids strict gate‑keeping of combined human knowledge.
If the matter ends up in court, it would become messy. Even if the team retains the latest model for themselves, all we will understand that they need revenue to cover hardware, electricity, taxes, and other expenses, yet they cannot license the weights themselves.
I have give the model that license and asked whether a person could use it to develop a commercial application; the model answered “no.” “Commercial” does not guarantee profit, merely that the product is used in a business context.
Therefore, please consider releasing the model under MIT or Apache 2.0, or keep it private until version 2.8.
SnooPaintings8639@reddit
I am confused. So you can use it to make money, but only as individual, not as a company? Where I am from, if I want to make money legally I have to open a company. Or work at one.
It is still not clear. From what they said: you can do anything if it's hobby project. You can't use it at work, nor deploy at your company for internal use. Right?
kevinlch@reddit
i think it's pretty clear:
- personal hobby - ok
- indie dev small app turn commercial - ok
- multi-tenant saas with AI capability - need license
- Host API service - need license
- Corporate in-house self host - need license
license might be free(depends on what you use it for. just submit request)
seamonn@reddit
more like
seamonn@reddit
From the looks of it, they want to keep it in a legally grey area so they always have the benefit of doubt.
I would avoid this for any serious work tbh.
Manueljlin@reddit
The only thing they care about is inference endpoint companies not undercutting them so they can actually fund themselves
seamonn@reddit
Then they should choose a license that's appropriate for that. Always go by License rather than what they claim they care about on random social media sites.
SnooPaintings8639@reddit
I think this is the only real answer. The PR or dev team might be believing otherwise, as but their legal team and C-suite know what they're doing. Legally binding documents use strategic ambiguity, random twitter post strongly insist you can do whatever.
Ok_Technology_5962@reddit
For US and Canada its called soul proprietorship... Individual operating as a business
MoistRecognition69@reddit
You can use it for work.
Your work just can't be hosting the model and charging for access (API)
SnooPaintings8639@reddit
Was is said anywhere or is it your interpretation? They stated clearly what is **forbidden** for companies (paid API), but there is nowhere any info what is **allowed**, other than personal usage. ie:
relmny@reddit
Isn't this what you're asking for?:
Sure you can. “software on your own servers for coding” meaning that u could coding to do anything include make money.
XTornado@reddit
If that is reflected correctly on the license not sure... but that is what it seems to be their intention, as seen on his tweet:
What we really care about is companies that offer and sell APIs to the public.
Since this is first time drafting a license, it doesn’t cover everything. Thanks for your understanding.
https://xcancel.com/RyanLeeMiniMax/status/2044147910280130764#m
ambient_temp_xeno@reddit
The things they've allowed would never have got on their radar anyway. One-off artworks with arduino code for example.
I'm just glad they released the weights at all, because I seriously felt it was 50/50. You can't go on past behaviour for how things are going to continue.
One-Estate-1494@reddit
Learn to read
SnooPaintings8639@reddit
You mean to read Twitter posts or legal documents? One is not the same as the other.
Frigorific@reddit
I think they just don't want you to sell API access.
seamonn@reddit
Then they should specify that as such in the license. The restrictions in the license go way beyond selling API access.
Such_Advantage_6949@reddit
U can use it at work to code, but i guess maybe not host it as your company chatbot for example
seamonn@reddit
What's the difference?
colin_colout@reddit
From where I'm from, companies have legal personhood.
Honestly it seems like they probably don't care unless you're at a certain scale.
SnooPaintings8639@reddit
They don't, but my legal team does. Therefore it's hobby only license, ie. personal use and not MIT or whatever they claimed.
seamonn@reddit
They don't until the company starts making serious money, then they very quickly will.
mikoskinen@reddit
It feels like they are trying to achieve "you need a commercial license if you want to offer MiniMax as a paid service through your API". I think they could use some existing license like SSPL or BSL to achieve this. If that is the goal.
ITBoss@reddit
Personally I would prefer fsl over BSL since the FSL is more strict on the timing and license conversion but would honestly be happy for both.
DloaDD@reddit
The only bad thing in minimax is the 200k context :(.
Having 1M context is really something else.
sleepy_roger@reddit
The license still sucks.
So I can't use this on my local setup for any company code, unless it's a non profit. I also can't make something and sell it because that's not personal use.
They need to hire a lawyer to write this or they need to just add what's in the tweets and call it good.
Historical-Internal3@reddit
I honestly cannot understand the drama around this.
Either invest $4-8k to run it locally (full precision at modest tks) or purchase an API key from a provider.
There is no watermarking or other forms of validation when it comes to code you generate from the LLM (that you then monetize).
Am I missing something here?
Literally just don’t serve the model to others in any business capacity, whether it’s direct API or a product that wraps around the model itself etc
OkDas@reddit
what hardware can you run m2.7 full precision on for $4-7k? It is more like $20k from what I see.
sleepy_roger@reddit
6 3090's runs it pretty well, under 10k total for the entire build.
OkDas@reddit
not full precision though?
Historical-Internal3@reddit
I’m doing it on my two DGX sparks currently. My cost was $7k before the price hike. More $8k now. Full precision wouldn’t apply to the lower range obviously.
SnooPaintings8639@reddit
I would like to suggest this as go-to local model at the company I work. It will have to go over legal team, and license must state clearly that it is allowed, not so twitter explanations "what we mean".
What you describe as "buy own hardware" or "use and don't care" is just case of non-commercial use. That's fine, but the confusion is that they claimed 'MIT-like' license, which is very permissive.
The model is really good, so having legal clarity would allow for its real adoption. If that will not be fixed, it will be part of long list hobby-only models, under yet another unfriendly license.
Historical-Internal3@reddit
Then suggest it.
In ANY serious commercial capacity your company should reach out to them and negotiate a specific agreement and/or obtain clarity from THEIR legal. Paper trail and all.
I honestly just call BS with what you’re saying. Especially given your post and comment history.
seamonn@reddit
This is one use case. A lot of arguments being brought up is what if you are a hobbyist programmer who wants to use this model to make something commercial. With the current license, it's a no go.
Historical-Internal3@reddit
You can generate code from it and use THAT CODE commercially, there are no watermarks and/or ways to validate what model you used on your code. Period. Regardless of what the license says.
Be real here.
You cannot use THE MODEL in a commercial capacity. Whether that’s serving the model or wrapping it in code.
seamonn@reddit
You are very wrong. From the license:
If you are generating CODE for commercial purpose using this MODEL, then it falls under "the commercial use of APIs provided by or for the Software or its derivatives, including to support or enable commercial products, services, or operations, whether in a cloud-based, hosted, or other similar environment" even if it's your own self hosted environment.
Historical-Internal3@reddit
You still aren’t getting it.
They cannot prove the code generated from their model was in-fact, from their model.
i.e. the only instance where being this cautious makes sense is if you were in an actual corporate environment wanting to host the model for your employees in which case you would be in contact with minimax via their official channels and locking in a clarifying agreement of some sort.
if you’re a hobbyist - they can’t prove shit.
So you’re stressing about absolutely nothing.
seamonn@reddit
You would be surprised how much these companies track data on users. I wouldn't surprised if they have built something to verify if code was generated using their model.
If you want to play with fire, then go ahead but you shouldn't really be recommending others to break their license with a "trust me bro" mentality.
Historical-Internal3@reddit
I’m running it locally. With a harness I built of my own.
So good luck to them.
Welcome to “locallama”.
MDSExpro@reddit
If you think "locallama" is about ability to hide breaking law then you are in wrong sub.
Historical-Internal3@reddit
🥱
thrownawaymane@reddit
Google has demonstrated that they can watermark AI generated text. There is no reason to assume that code, with its tendency for structure cannot also be watermarked.
Historical-Internal3@reddit
Those are two vastly different approaches. One is legitimately proprietary and embedded/not seen visually. The other would only be possible if you’re sloppy/not reviewing and or cannot read/comprehend (and just don’t care quite honestly).
SnooPaintings8639@reddit
I feel a little bit offended, not gonna lie. What exactly in my posts history suggest this being BS?
If I were to got with a list of models to try out the for internal processing, I'd go **solely** with clear license ones. As a tech person I would not want to add any friction nor add costs and process time to the legal team just to get this model instead of something more friendly. Why would I even start pushing this through the company until we prove this model beats all the other?
Historical-Internal3@reddit
If you wanted to suggest this to them, you probably had a good reason.
Tip: Use that reason(s) to justify why they should obtain clarification and or a specific agreement with minimax.
Firm-Fix-5946@reddit
yeah this is amateur hour, they should've either used a well-established license unmodified or got someone who knows what they're doing to write one.
ForsookComparison@reddit
And the devrel guy on X immediately said that's okay. I'm so confused now lol. I think they need a third edit
AXYZE8@reddit
You can, its the "a" use, you are deploying that model for personal use. You cannot share that deployment with other (like hosting that on company server)
illkeepthatinmind@reddit
You say it's the "a" use, but no company is going to rely on a _personal_ use wording. I agree, they need professional help to write it for the desired outcome.
AXYZE8@reddit
He wrote about using that for any company code on his local setup.
The "a" grants him right to selfhost that directly, as he is sole person using that and he is not hosting that as commercial entity.
The license wasn't and still isnt about outputs, but about deployment. Now that license grants him to deploy that model and use without extra licensing.
Once again - its not about what model can produce, but where you are licensed to run it. You own the output it creates.
__JockY__@reddit
Yeah this seems no good if I want to use a local LLM on my own hardware to help write code for my job at a for-profit company.
…and Qwen3.5 397B A17B NVFP4 is much faster, anyway.
Hot_Turnip_3309@reddit
None of this is legal. You cannot license model weights.
tarruda@reddit
I love how some people get pissed as if they are about to create a billion dollar business and Minimax license is preventing them from achieving their goals.
TheRiddler79@reddit
*trillion dollar
mr_zerolith@reddit
I'm running a company using open source models and we currently use Step 3.5 Flash 197B.
I've considered running this model.
I would be okay paying for an open source model if it was good enough. But we are happy with Step.
Has anyone in my shoes asked for what the price is for commercial use in roughly this scenario?
I'm unmotivated to ask at this point.
Tashimm@reddit
That's the exact commit where the shift happened. It's pretty confusing how they're labeling it 'MIT-style' when it's actually quite restrictive for commercial use. Seems like a direct response to those bad-faith providers degrading the model weights, but it definitely adds some legal friction for anyone looking to build on it commercially.
thread-e-printing@reddit
The BSD license encodes an interesting balance that might better suit the authors' purposes.
yoshiK@reddit
We had all these discussion about non-military or non-commercial and similar licenses something like 15 years ago for open source. For me the takeaway was, that trying to describe these boundaries is really hard and fails in interesting ways. So what does commercial mean, no profit, what about my grandma giving me 10 bucks after I used the model to design the invitations for her birthday?
Former-Ad-5757@reddit
The problem here is the cursor situation, they want to stop bad api actors and cursor has shown that with a middleman it is very easy to bypass licenses if you make them too concrete. If a ceo sets up MiniMax for his personal use it’s ok, and if his company doesn’t directly exposes that api (but it uppercases every request) can his company then expose their own api?
Eyelbee@reddit
Wow, didn't think it was possible to write it even more ambiguous than before, doesn't make any sense, really. It wouldn't cost that much to hire a lawyer to draft this.
ProfessionalSpend589@reddit
I think they should disclose if GLM 5 was used in any of the edits.
Ok-Scarcity-7875@reddit
Why they don't just write that API providers must use their unmodified weights if their API endpoint is called or is associated with their model name? Because that is what they claim they want to prevent, which would be a legitimate case if you still want to be called true open source.
JLeonsarmiento@reddit
Ok, now makes sense.
CheatCodesOfLife@reddit
Waiting for new GGUF quants ;)
LegacyRemaster@reddit
sounds good to me
Kahvana@reddit
I'm happy they updated the license. While I would've loved to see apache 2.0, I understand they need to make money too in order to finance the development.
Ok-Measurement-1575@reddit
I think someone posted exactly this yesterday?
Or is this an update to that? Kinda looks the same.
popiazaza@reddit
I hope they would use use Kimi/Llama like license where they just state that rich company couldn't use without getting a commercial license, but everyone else could use it freely.
Acceptable-Yam2542@reddit
nothing says confidence in your model like changing the license after people already downloaded it.
Ok_Warning2146@reddit
Well. Just don't use this semi free model. There are tons of alternatives.
ambient_temp_xeno@reddit
It doesn't match up with the tweets from yesterday, but I'm tired of being dicked around about it, so I'm using it however I like. How do you like that, Minimax?
Ryannnnnnnnnnnnnnnh@reddit
license updates like this are great until you are the person trying to figure out what counts as personal, commercial, or somewhere in between. if companies still need to reach out separately, the real question is whether builders will feel safe enough to actually ship on top of it.
Stepfunction@reddit
Yeah, so it's effectively not usable for commercial purposes. Most people selling something they make will form a corporation of some sort to hold the business venture.
Far-Low-4705@reddit
at least you can still use it to develop commercial software, you just cant serve a direct API and profit from it from what it sounds
Stepfunction@reddit
That last update specially days any company or legal entity needs to contact them before use.
XTornado@reddit
I mean you would do it anyway as you want a clear paper trail that they allowed it no?
anotherthrowaway469@reddit
The worst and most suspicious part of all of this is that there are a number of licenses that already do what they want, e.g. Prosperity License and Polyform non commercial.
FinalCap2680@reddit
Doesn't to "make money" in most parts of the world mean to be"legal entity"...?
seamonn@reddit
Pretty much and it's risky to not start a legal entity when starting to ship something commercial.
Frigorific@reddit
Can these license even apply to model weights? I was under the impression that you can only license things that are written by humans.
mtmttuan@reddit
So wording aside in the end can I host the model on my company's hardware and use it for commercial AI services or not?
ResidentPositive4122@reddit
Nope. Personal is the opposite of company in this context. Unless your company is non-profit, you can't use this. Only personal, NC usage is allowed even with the new edits.
ResidentPositive4122@reddit
Still NC. Still "modified" MIT. Bruh, just call it NC and be done with it.
rebelSun25@reddit
Amazing.