Exploring the legal limits of MAX
I understand the intention for the current licensing model, and intentions of Modular, however the license itself still gives off a feeling of uncertainty. I want to ask for specific examples of what is in violation of the MAX license and what is not.
One realistic example I think of: let's say I learn the mojo language & tooling and now as an engineer one of the benefits of hiring me as an employee is that I can deploy AI solutions on the cloud for the company.
That is considered "Competitive Activity", but is it against the license? And a separate question is this something Modular's future legal team would pursue to dismiss ones license or force a purchase of MAX enterprise?
I would very much appreciate a longer legal section on the faq, as well as a more detailed explanation. The explanations I've heard so far don't clear up the grey zone.
8 Replies
Disclaimer: I am not a Modular employee, I am a volunteer, talk to your lawyer, etc, etc
The intention of the license is to prevent Amazon, Microsoft or Google from selling "MAX as a service" without paying Modular for it. Unless the company is in the business of allowing users to upload something recognizable as "code" (Mojo, Python, C, etc) to their servers and using MAX to execute it, or is providing AI infrastructure, you should be fully in the clear. The important words are "third parties". If the only people who touch the MAX stuff on a software level work for the same company as you, you should be fine. If you work for a vector database company, or someone who has offerings that support other companies doing AI, then you need to talk to Modular about it.
The scenario you outlined likely doesn't fall under competitive activity unless you meet one of those caveats. You may also want to look through #licensing
The scenario you outlined likely doesn't fall under competitive activity unless you meet one of those caveats. You may also want to look through #licensing
not to distract from the opening question, but continuing with topic of this thread. If the "third parties" is key, would a massive company like Alphabet creating it's infrastructure and using it for its own gain be in violation of self-managed license?
Hey @Pun, do you mind if I cross-post this in #licensing as well?
My reading of the license is that this is fine so long as it doesn't show up on Google cloud.
Similarly, if OpenAI wanted to use it they could use it for training gpt5 but not in the back end of the ChatGPT application.
Such things need to be in the FAQ
I have no issues with it, that channel seems to have higher restrictions
We had a spam issue, so we have a captcha in #roles-and-verify now.
Modular is walking a line between wanting to be permissive and not wanting to have an elasticsearch issue.
If your company is concerned, you can talk to them and see. You might want an SLA and priority bugfixes anyway if you are building substantial services on top of Mojo or MAX.
I feel the issue isn't that one may require to pay to use MAX, but that it's not clear how it works. Paying for software is not a novel concept, and I think it should be reflected in the messaging
Now the messaging in most places gives off a feeling like you may get the rug swept from under you, while mentioning that it's never going to happen. The procedures should be cleared up, if they even exist that is
The current solution that Modular has offered is that if what is there is not sufficient for you, contact them and talk about it.