NVIDIA's free AI models are moving to a truly open licence
NVIDIA is moving its free AI models to OpenMDW, a Linux Foundation licence that lets anyone use, change and build on a model without paying. One caveat: many of these models don't show up when you filter by licence on Hugging Face, so check the model's own page.
In May 2026, NVIDIA committed to releasing future versions of its free AI model families under OpenMDW, a licence published by the Linux Foundation. If you use free AI models, or you are curious why people keep arguing about "open" AI, this is worth two minutes.
What the licence gives you
When a company gives away an AI model, the licence is the fine print that says what you may do with it. OpenMDW, short for Open Model, Data & Weights License Agreement, sits at the most generous end of the scale. The Linux Foundation says it gives "developers rights to train, modify, contribute, redistribute and deploy open models". In plain terms, you can use the model, change it, build a product on it and share your version, without asking permission and without paying.
That is not the norm. Plenty of licences that sound open come with catches: some forbid commercial use, and some start charging once a business earns past a set amount. OpenMDW has none of those strings, which is why a neutral body like the Linux Foundation publishing it matters. "By adopting the Linux Foundation's OpenMDW framework for NVIDIA open model families, we're helping establish a simpler, more consistent standard for open models at scale," said Kari Briski, vice president of generative AI at NVIDIA.
One thing to be aware of
The licence is easier to get than to find. On Hugging Face, the main site where people download AI models, you can filter models by licence. Many of NVIDIA's OpenMDW models currently do not show up in that filter, because the licence was recorded in a free-text notes field rather than the site's official menu, which only added an OpenMDW option in June. The model pages themselves display the licence correctly.
So the practical advice is simple. Do not judge by the search filter. Open the model's own page, and if it says OpenMDW, you can take that at face value: it is one of the friendliest sets of terms in AI right now, and it is the label to look for if you want a model you can freely build on.
Sources
Linux Foundation announcement, 28 May 2026 · Example model page on Hugging Face · The OpenMDW licence search on Hugging Face
Source: Linux Foundation