HomeRakuten AI 3.0 Faces Open Source Backlash Over DeepSeek License Removal
The recently unveiled Rakuten AI 3.0 model from Japan's Rakuten Group has ignited public debate. Upon its release, the model faced accusations of violating its original open-source license, drawing sharp criticism from the open-source community.
Rakuten Group promoted the launch as "Japan's largest" AI model. However, technology enthusiasts quickly discovered that the model was actually trained using DeepSeek's DeepSeek-V3 as its foundation. While fine-tuning open-source models is standard industry practice, Rakuten's handling of the situation resulted in several controversies:
Compliance Issues: The initial release version removed the original MIT Open Source License file (LICENSE). According to the license terms, any derivative works must retain the original copyright notice and license statement.
Public Sentiment: Japanese netizens noted that Rakuten utilized significant computing resources supported by government funding yet failed to deliver a fully independent model. This was seen as a letdown for local communities expecting domestically developed innovation.
Following online exposure and widespread discussion, Rakuten moved swiftly to address the issues:
Updated Declaration: Rakuten added a file named NOTICE to the open-source repository, which included the complete original attribution statement for DeepSeek-V3.
Current Compliance: Since the MIT license does not strictly mandate a specific filename for the declaration, Rakuten's corrective action restored legal compliance. Nevertheless, the community continues to criticize the initial approach as "lacking transparency."
While the underlying technical competition rules did not forbid fine-tuning open-source models, the community judged Rakuten's act of "hiding" the source as "insincere." This incident has reignited deeper conversations about how companies, particularly those receiving public subsidies, should balance independent research with the ethical use of open-source achievements.
To date, Rakuten Group has not offered further explanation for the initial decision to remove the license file.
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The recently unveiled Rakuten AI 3.0 model from Japan's Rakuten Group has ignited public debate. Upon its release, the model faced accusations of violating its original open-source license, drawing sharp criticism from the open-source community.
Rakuten Group promoted the launch as "Japan's largest" AI model. However, technology enthusiasts quickly discovered that the model was actually trained using DeepSeek's DeepSeek-V3 as its foundation. While fine-tuning open-source models is standard industry practice, Rakuten's handling of the situation resulted in several controversies:
Compliance Issues: The initial release version removed the original MIT Open Source License file (LICENSE). According to the license terms, any derivative works must retain the original copyright notice and license statement.
Public Sentiment: Japanese netizens noted that Rakuten utilized significant computing resources supported by government funding yet failed to deliver a fully independent model. This was seen as a letdown for local communities expecting domestically developed innovation.
Following online exposure and widespread discussion, Rakuten moved swiftly to address the issues:
Updated Declaration: Rakuten added a file named NOTICE to the open-source repository, which included the complete original attribution statement for DeepSeek-V3.
Current Compliance: Since the MIT license does not strictly mandate a specific filename for the declaration, Rakuten's corrective action restored legal compliance. Nevertheless, the community continues to criticize the initial approach as "lacking transparency."
While the underlying technical competition rules did not forbid fine-tuning open-source models, the community judged Rakuten's act of "hiding" the source as "insincere." This incident has reignited deeper conversations about how companies, particularly those receiving public subsidies, should balance independent research with the ethical use of open-source achievements.
To date, Rakuten Group has not offered further explanation for the initial decision to remove the license file.
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