field-of-use

Restrictions on what kind of work the model may be used for. Distinct from acceptable-use clauses, which prohibit specific harmful uses. A field-of-use restrictionⓘacceptable-usegovernanceLicense or terms-of-service clauses that prohibit certain uses (weapons, surveillance, harassment, child sexual abuse material), common on open-weight licenses but rejected by the strict open-source definition. Chat about this → Open full entry → might say: “for academic research only,” “not for use by entities with revenue over $X,” “not for military applications,” or “not in service of a competing product.” The distinction between this and “open weightsⓘopen weightsweightsA model release that publishes the trained parameters under some downloadable license, distinct from "open source" which (per OSAID) also requires data and training-code openness. Chat about this → Open full entry →” is the work the clause blocks even when the use is otherwise lawful.

Common in research-only releases (early LLaMA 1 weights from Meta, several Microsoft Research model previews) and in license-restricted academic weights. The Open Source Definition rejects field-of-use restrictions as incompatible with point 6 of the OSD: “no discrimination against fields of endeavor.”

For a user evaluating a model release, field-of-use is one of the first things to check. A “free for non-commercial use” label is a field-of-use restrictionⓘacceptable-usegovernanceLicense or terms-of-service clauses that prohibit certain uses (weapons, surveillance, harassment, child sexual abuse material), common on open-weight licenses but rejected by the strict open-source definition. Chat about this → Open full entry → in plain English. The right question is whether the intended deployment is in the licensor’s permitted set, not just whether weights are downloadable.