Open Weights

Open weights means a model provider makes trained parameter files available for download. That can enable private inference, custom serving, quantization, fine-tuning, reproducible evaluation, and reduced dependence on a hosted API. Open weights is not automatically the same as open source. A release may omit training code, data, or complete recipes, and its license may restrict commercial use, redistribution, regulated domains, or downstream models. Review the exact checkpoint and license instead of inferring rights from the phrase. Operational control also creates operational responsibility. The deploying team owns capacity, security patches, model serving, monitoring, safety controls, evaluation, and incident response. Compare total ownership cost with a managed API before choosing self-hosting.