Deep learning and free software [LWN.net]

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Benefits for LWN subscribersThe primary benefit from subscribing to LWN is helping to keep us publishing, but, beyond that, subscribers get immediate access to all site content and access to a number of extra site features. Please sign up today!By Jake EdgeJuly 18, 2018Deep-learning applications typically rely on a trained neural net to accomplish their goal (e.g. photo recognition, automatic translation, or playing go). That neural net uses what is essentially a large collection of weighting numbers that have been empirically determined as part of its training (which generally uses a huge set of training data). A free-software application could use those weights, but there are a number of barriers for users who might want to tweak them for various reasons. A discussion on the debian-devel mailing list recently looked at whether these deep-learning applications can ever truly be considered "free" (as in freedom) because of these pre-computed weights—and the difficulties inherent in c…