Redistribution, in a weights licence
Redistribution means handing the weights to somebody else: publishing a fine-tune, mirroring a file for colleagues, baking it into a container image, or shipping it inside a product. Downloading and running is the easy case; this is the other one. As of 2026-09-22.
| Operation | Condition usually attached |
|---|---|
| Mirroring a file | Carry the licence with it |
| Publishing a fine-tune | Attribution, and sometimes the same terms |
| Shipping inside a product | Notice, and sometimes a separate grant |
| Bundling in a container image | Same as mirroring, and easy to forget |
Inclusion rule. Operations that put the weights in somebody else's hands. Local use is excluded because it is not distribution under any of the licences in the register. Order. From the simplest form of distribution to the most embedded.
1Container images are the forgotten case
A team that would never upload a weights file to a public repository will happily bake one into an image and push it to a registry. That is distribution, and the licence conditions apply to it the same way.
It is also the case most likely to happen without a review, because the decision looks like infrastructure rather than like publishing.
2Whether derivatives inherit the terms varies
Standard permissive licences generally allow redistribution with attribution and do not require the derivative to carry the same licence. Vendor-written terms vary far more on this point, and some are explicit about it.
If a plan involves handing weights to anyone in any form, this is the paragraph to read first rather than last. A register can tell you which document to open, not what it says.
3Why this is outside every cell here
Nothing in the register records what a licence permits, because permission depends on the document, the jurisdiction and the plan. The cells hold a name, a page and a date, which is the starting point for the question rather than an answer to it.
Where a plan involves handing weights to anyone in any form, the name in the cell tells a reader which document to open and the link tells them where it is.
A reading note, not an entry: no vendor value appears on this page. Where the register records this term for a particular release, it is on the licence column and on that family's own page. Nearby terms: Derivative weights, Output rights.