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Open-source ChatGPT Alternative (jan.ai)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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[–] 54 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

having contributors sign a CLA is always very sus and I think this is indicative of the project owners having some plans of monetizing it even though it is currently under AGPLv3. Their core values of no dark patterns and whatnot seem like a sales argument rather than an actual motivation/principle, especially when you see that they are a bootstrapped startup.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I mean anybody can fork it and keep developing it without a CLA under AGPL3.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Yeah it's easy to fall into a negativity bias instead of doing a risk benefit analysis , the company could be investing money and resources that could be missing from open source projects, especially professional work by non programmers (e.g. UX researchers) which is something that open source projects usually miss.

    You could probably figure it out by going over the contributions.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Of course, I am not against software being open-source, and I much prefer this approach of companies making their software open-source, but it's the CLA that really bothers me. I like companies contributing to the FOSS ecosystem, what I don't like is companies trying to benefit from free contributions and companies having the possibility to change the license of the code from those contributors

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I’m starting to come around to big corps running their custom enhanced versions while feeding their open source counterparts with the last gen weights. As much as I love open source, people need to eat.

    As was mentioned, if they start doing something egregious, they’re not the only game in town, and can also be forked. Love it or hate it, a big corp sponsor makes Joe six-pack feel a little more secure in using a product.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    Free as in freedom, not free as in beer.

    GPLv3 allows you to sell your work for money, but you still have to hand over the code your customers purchased. You buy our product, you own it, as is. Do whatever you like with it, but if you sell a derivative, you better cough up the new code to whoever bought it.

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    • [–] 22 points 2 years ago

    that runs 100% offline on your computer.

    Goddamn, that's wonderful!

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    [–] 18 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Does this differ from Ollama + Open WebUI in any way?

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Depends. Are either of those companies bootstrapping a for-profit startup and trying to dupe people into contributing free labor prior to their inevitable rug pull/switcheroo?

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Do explain how you dupe people into contributing free labor and do a switcheroo with an open source project. All the app does is just provide a nice UI for running models.

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    • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    “100% Open Source“

    [links to two proprietary services]

    Why are so many projects like this?

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    • [–] 11 points 2 years ago*

    Other offline tools I've found:

    GPT4All

    RWKY-Runner

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I've been using Jan for a while now. It's great!

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Would you say it's noob-friendly?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Very. Just have a good enough internet connection and hardware to download and run models. Interrupted downloads must start over. 4-41 GB. Otherwise find the source, use wget, and download to the correct folder.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Is there a model you prefer? I've been throwing the exact same question to different models and they seem to all give a very similar answer.

    Also, how is it getting certain information if it's all offline? For example, I asked it to recommend some bike products, and gave very specific brands and models.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Train it online. Use it offline.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's crazy impressive, though. I've been playing with it more, and it's very specific about certain things. I guess you can hold a lot of data in the GB of space these models use.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Agree, no small feat. Two caveats tho:

    • These models prioritize plausibility above factual correctness. So verification often is needed.
    • Data from after the creation of trainingmaterial is absent of course.
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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    These models prioritize plausibility above factual correctness. So verification often is needed.

    100% I was telling my wife that anyone who knows about a subject, can easily point out the inaccuracies with the output from any of the models.

    But if you don't know about a subject, the AI gives you an answer that seems like it could be right. Scary to see where this technology takes us, especially when the majority easily digests information without verifying any of it.

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    • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm in the process of installing https://github.com/imartinez/privateGPT will check this one out afterwards.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    One difference is that Jan is increadibly easy to install, just download the AppImage, make it executable and start it.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    @jeena And absolutely nothing can go wrong by downloading random files from the internet based on contemporary hype, making them executable and starting them...

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    As opposed to cloning a random repository and running make or something?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    @xigoi Is that something you do?

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    How else would you install something that doesn’t happen to be in your favorite package manager?

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago

    @xigoi Are you actually trying to get malware into your computer? Don't install **random** shiny new things without maximum skepticism. Period. Just let some other fools "test" the minefield for you. Or do a proper inspection. Executing foreign code just because it had "GPT" in the name... and acting like there was no other option... yuck!

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    • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    Anyone interested in a local llm should check out Llamafile from Mozilla.

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    [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    This looks very cool, especially the part about being able to use it on consumer-grade laptops. Will try it out when I get a chance.

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    [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    What are the hardware requirements?

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