2mo ago

Release v0.6.11 · open-webui/open-webui

For those unfamiliar, Open WebUI is a self-hosted AI interface, which you can use with local models with Ollama, OpenRouter, etc.

Also note there was a recent license change, which is why I didn't say 'Open source'. You can make your own judgements about that here:

https://docs.openwebui.com/license/

See the link in the post for all the changes, there were too many to list and lots of quality of life improvements from what I can tell.

29 comments

lmao at an LLM project whining about anyone "taking our work, stripping the branding, selling it as their own, and giving nothing back".

Urgh I didn't know about the license change, that's a bummer. How come every project with 'Open' in it's name goes a similar route and becomes not open?
Now it's freeware with available source, but you can't build anything on top of it.
- It's still very permissive, you just can't remove their branding.
  
  One of the main problems is that this is targeted at forks to limit their possibility (Since you can't really technically call it something else following the license, and they may come after you via trademarks if you retain it).
  OnlyOffice also do this, they prevent changing specific logo use (via sketch interpretation of the AGPLv3) then also prohibit you from using their logo.
- Because they realize they have enough user base to not slum it for free anymore. A lot of projects are fine just getting the notoriety and consultation dollars, but some people are just looking to build things and flip it for money later. It ebbs and flows over time in either direction. I'd say right now most projects are on the "we're for sale" side of things.
  
  An AI project that's ultimately just trying to cash out? Say it ain't so!
- Easy, because they want the social credibility of being open source, but also later, when the project gets big, they want to dictate exactly who uses it and how.
  If you care about how your software is used to this degree -- don't open source it! Every open source package I have ever made has come with a permissive license, because I want people to be able to use it however they wish. That's actual freedom. Unfortunately, a subset of "however they wish" can also be "used to bomb Gaza", but that is the cost of liberty and freedom. You have to take the good with the bad.
  
  I don't know if "freedom to modify source code" and "committing a genocide" are morally comparable. This seems to undermine your point. I would have picked a different analogy

Mommy, that source available project is claiming to be Open Source™️! 🚨 🚓

Should have just used AGPL from the start, instead of falling back to this fucked up modified BSD license. It wouldn't stop people from stripping the branding, but they'd have to release source code which would tell all users what they're actually using.

Their stated reason for the change was the fact that In the great ai gold rush people who never contributed to the project Simply grabbed it, and without contributing anything to the project did nothing except stripped the branding and then go sell it. kind of a crappy thing to do but hey it's the Internet. I don't have any firsthand experience so I can't say for sure what the deal was. we've seen The same thing with forks of V s code turned into all kinds of things.
- Simply grabbed it, and without contributing anything to the project did nothing except stripped the branding and then go sell it.
  Unless this is specifically called out in the license, this is an activity allowed by many permissive open source licenses. If they knew that this type of activity was unwanted initially, then they didn't choose the proper license.

The license change literally just prevents you from stripping their branding if you have more than 50 users a month - this is more permissive than the MPL that Firefox is licensed under
- Wrong, Firefox allows rebranding.

i swear, open source devs will do anything, but license their code under AGPLv3.
Using a permissive license? Then don't whine about corporations profiting off of your code.

Open Source, permissive! Do what ever you want with my code!
No, not like that!

Ngl I really wish there was a decent way to hook into third party “offerings” like duck.ai. I don’t have the spare GPUs to run anything at any kind of decent speed.
- It is possible to connect it to third party platforms (open router, various paid platforms), but I didn't figure out a way to connect it to duck.ai
  That's the only one that I still go to a separate site for, and I can't maintain the history as a result
  
  I was digging around and it seems there are some iffy api translators for duck.ai such as https://github.com/HuggingBear/DuckDuckGo-AI
  But I’ve not tried this yet, so no idea how it works.

For those unfamiliar, Open WebUI is a self-hosted AI interface, which you can use with local models with Ollama, OpenRouter, etc.
How is this simple summary missing from the project page itself? Was that so hard?
- Because that's a release page. The first paragraph in the readme tells you what open webui is.
  https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui

Another GitHub project with no screenshots
- Here is their demo gif:
  More info here: https://docs.openwebui.com/
  
  Oh, it does show up on desktop, not on mobile however.

29 comments