MiniMax's Deceptive Open Source Claim Exposed as Proprietary by gnu.support


The M2.7 “Open Source” Illusion: When MIT-Style Means Ask Permission

First, a confession. We in the Free Software movement have never been entirely comfortable with the term “open source.” Richard Stallman and the GNU project have long argued that “open source” focuses on technical merit—better code, faster development—while abandoning the moral stance: freedom as a right, not a convenience. We have said for decades that open source is not enough.

But today, we find ourselves defending the very term we criticized. Because MiniMax has managed to do something remarkable: they have made “open source” mean even less.

The License: A Masterpiece of Deception

Let us examine the document that MiniMax calls, with a straight face, an “MIT-style” license.

NON-COMMERCIAL LICENSE Non-commercial use permitted based on MIT-style terms; commercial use requires prior written authorization. Copyright © 2026 MiniMax

Stop right there. The MIT license, the actual one published by the Open Source Initiative at opensource.org/license/MIT, contains exactly two conditions: keep the copyright notice, and keep the permission notice. That is all. There is no “non-commercial.” There is no “ask for authorization.” There is no appendix of prohibited uses involving discrimination, minors, or military purposes.

What MiniMax has done is take the MIT license, surgically attach a list of restrictions longer than the original text, and then claim the corpse still lives.

  1. If the Software (or any derivative works thereof) is used for any Commercial Use, you shall prominently display “Built with MiniMax M2.7” on a related website, user interface, blogpost, about page or product documentation.
  2. Any Commercial Use of the Software or any derivative work thereof is prohibited without obtaining a separate, prior written authorization from MiniMax.

Read that again. If you somehow manage to use this commercially (after begging for permission), you must advertise for them. And if you don’t ask permission first? Prohibited.

  1. “Commercial Use” means… (iii) the deployment or provision of the Software or its derivatives that have been subjected to post-training, fine-tuning, instruction-tuning, or any other form of modification, for any commercial purpose.

They even restrict you from fine-tuning the model and then using that fine-tuned version commercially. Without their permission. In writing. In advance.

This is not open source. This is not MIT-style. This is proprietary software with a free tier for non-commercial use, wrapped in the stolen credibility of a permissive license.

“We Open-Sourced OpenRoom”: A Phrase That Means Nothing

On their Hugging Face page, MiniMax makes the following claim in the “Entertainment” section:

M2.7 features strengthened character consistency and emotional intelligence. We open-sourced OpenRoom, an interactive demo that places AI interaction within a Web GUI space with real-time visual feedback and scene interactions. Try it at openroom.ai.

“We open-sourced.” A lovely phrase. But what does it mean when the accompanying license for the model is non-commercial and permission-required? It means they have emptied the word of all meaning. It is a marketing slogan, not a legal promise.

And in the “Professional Work” section, they proudly declare:

M2.7 achieved an ELO score of 1495 on GDPval-AA (highest among open-source models), surpassing GPT5.3.

“Highest among open-source models.” According to whom? Under what definition of open source? Certainly not the OSI definition. Certainly not the Debian Free Software Guidelines. Certainly not any definition that has ever been written down by a neutral body.

They are claiming a trophy in a race that their own model is not eligible to enter. It is like a professional boxer showing up to the Olympics and demanding a medal. The word “open source” is doing all the work here—and it is being asked to do work it was never designed for.

The Community Responds

On X.com, users have been quick to identify the core problem. It is not the restriction itself. It is the label.

ArxAstrum (@ArxAstrum) The problem is calling it open source. It’s not. They want the community good will and positive benefits of being known as an open company without actually providing the freedom to use the model in any way that actually matters. It’s bait and switch.

Exactly. The goodwill of the open source community is a valuable asset. It attracts developers, contributors, and mindshare. MiniMax wants that asset without paying the price: actual freedom.

Another user, Hot Aisle (@HotAisle), adds a practical note:

I’ve been using this model all day for an open source project. Compared with Codex/Claude, it isn’t some magical model. It makes a lot of mistakes.

The model, stripped of its “open source” marketing halo, is just another proprietary language model with average performance. The deception is not just philosophical—it is practical. Developers are being misled into investing time in a model that they cannot freely use for the projects they actually want to build.

Ryan Lee’s “Apology”: More of the Same

Ryan Lee, Head of DevRel at MiniMax, posted a long thread attempting to explain the license change. It is worth quoting at length, because it reveals the mindset behind the deception.

First — the model is still open. You can download the weights, run them locally, fine-tune them, build on them, do research, ship non-commercial projects. That hasn’t changed, and we fought internally to keep it that way.

“Still open.” No. It is not open. It is downloadable. Those are different things. A book in a library is downloadable—you can check it out, read it, study it. But you cannot publish a commercial edition of that book without permission from the copyright holder. That does not make the library “open source.” It makes the library a library.

A fully permissive license meant we had no way to push back on any of that. The new license is our attempt to draw a line: if you want to run M2.7 as a commercial service.

This is an honest explanation of a business problem. They were losing reputation because bad actors hosted劣质 versions of their model. That is a real problem. But the solution to a business problem is a business license, not the theft of open source branding.

Keeping non-commercial, research, and personal use free and unrestricted under MIT-style terms.

Again, “MIT-style terms.” There is no such thing. The MIT license is a specific legal instrument. What they mean is “terms that start with the MIT license text and then add a dozen restrictions.” That is like saying “I am driving a horse-and-buggy-style car” because you glued reins to your steering wheel.

Finally, Ryan Lee posted this:

RyanLee (@RyanLeeMiniMax) Self-hosted M2.7 for code writing is absolutely allowed and free of charge!!!😁 I think this license is not detailed enough, so I will update it.

He promises to update the license. But the problem is not insufficient detail. The problem is the foundation. No amount of detail will turn a non-commercial, permission-required license into an open source license. You cannot polish a proprietary turd.

A Note from the Free Software Perspective

The GNU project and Richard Stallman have long distinguished between “open source” and “free software.” The open source movement focuses on practical benefits: better code, faster development, lower costs. The free software movement focuses on ethics: users deserve the freedom to run, study, modify, and share software for any purpose.

From the free software perspective, even a proper open source license (like MIT) is insufficient because it does not enforce copyleft—it allows proprietary derivatives. We prefer the GNU General Public License.

But here is the irony: MiniMax’s license is so restrictive that it would not even qualify as open source under the most permissive interpretation. It fails the first test: freedom to use for any purpose. It fails the second: freedom to redistribute commercially. It fails before it even gets to the finer points of copyleft.

We in the free software community have spent decades arguing that “open source” is too weak a standard. We never imagined a company would come along and make it even weaker by simply lying about what the words mean.

Conclusion: Call It What It Is

MiniMax has every right to release a proprietary model with a non-commercial license and a permission requirement for commercial use. That is their business decision. They spent money on training. They deserve to recoup that investment.

But they do not have the right to call that model “open source.” They do not have the right to claim “MIT-style terms.” They do not have the right to stand on the stage of the open source community while holding a license that would be rejected from any open source conference, any open source repository, any open source definition.

The Hugging Face page must change. The words “open source” must be removed from the “Professional Work” section. The phrase “open-sourced OpenRoom” must be corrected to “released the source code of OpenRoom under a non-commercial license.” And Ryan Lee must stop telling developers that “the model is still open” when what he means is “you can look at it but you cannot really use it freely.”

Until then, we will be here. Watching. Quoting. And reminding everyone:

Freedom is not a marketing strategy.

Update: The Retreat to “Open Weights”

On April 13, 2026, Ryan Lee quietly updated the Hugging Face page. The public signal was minimal:

RyanLee (@RyanLeeMiniMax) Updated

That’s it. No announcement. No mea culpa. No “we were wrong to call it open source.” Just a single word and a link.

The change? On the Hugging Face model card, the claims of being the “highest among open-source models” have been replaced. The model is now described as having “open weights.”

Let us be clear: This is progress. The word “open source” is a lie. The word “open weights” is merely misleading.

But do not applaud too loudly. The license has not changed. The restrictions remain identical:

“Open weights” is not a defined term. It has no legal standing. It is not recognized by the Open Source Initiative, the Free Software Foundation, Debian, or any other standards body. It is a marketing invention — a way to signal “you can download the file” without promising any of the freedoms that make open source valuable.

A model with open weights but a closed license is like a book you can download but cannot publish, adapt, or sell. The weight file is open. The freedom is not.

What Ryan Did Not Do

He did not apologize for calling it open source.

He did not thank the community for correcting him.

He did not acknowledge that the OSI definition or the four freedoms exist.

He did not change the license to actually permit commercial use.

He simply swapped one deceptive label for a slightly less deceptive label and moved on.

What Still Needs to Change

If MiniMax wants to be honest, they should:

  1. Remove all remaining references to “open source” from every blog post, tweet, and documentation page. (The original announcement blog post still contains the lie. Check it.)
  2. Publish a clear, plain-language summary at the top of the license that says: “This is NOT an open source license. This is a source-available, non-commercial license. Commercial use requires our written permission.”
  3. Stop using the word “open” entirely if they are not prepared to offer the four freedoms. “Open weights” is still riding the coattails of a movement they do not belong to.

Until then, the appropriate response is: Thank you for removing the most obvious lie. Now remove the rest.

Short Addendum for Social Media

If you are sharing this article, add this line:

“MiniMax just changed ‘open source’ to ‘open weights’ on their HF page. The license hasn’t changed. Still non-commercial. Still ask permission. Still not open. They just found a new way to say the same lie.”

This article is published on gnu.support. The author encourages readers to share it widely, to quote the license liberally, and to ask every company that claims “open source” to show their license—not just their marketing copy.

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