Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't like "available on request". I just want to download it and see if I can get it to run and mess around with it a bit. Why do I have to request anything? And I'm not an academic or researcher, so will they accept my random request? I'm also curious to know what the minimum requirements are to get this to run in inference mode.
Couple of random ideas: - They are concerned about the usage of the largest model, so want to vet people - The 175B parameter model is so large that it doesn't play nice with GitHub or something along those lines
There is no frickin' way that the difficulty or cost of distributing the model is a factor, even if it was several dozen terabytes in size (and it is probably somewhere around 1.5 terabytes). Not for Meta, and not when CDNs and torrrents are available as options.
If they are gatekeeping access to the model, there is no need to ascribe it to a side effect of something else. Their intent IS to limit access to the full model. I'm not really sure why they are bothering, unless they're assuming that unsavory actors won't be motivated enough to pay some grad student for a copy.
I suppose they may be adding a fingerprint or watermark of some sort to trace illicit copies back to the source if they're serious about limiting redistribution, but those can usually be found and removed if you have copies from two or more different sources.