Published weights: a copy nobody can withdraw
Published weights are model files distributed for download under a stated licence. A withdrawal reaches the listing and not the copies, so the retirement question changes into an operations decision: hardware, storage and an inference stack instead of somebody else's schedule. As of 2026-09-22.
| Removed from the problem | Added to the problem |
|---|---|
| A retirement date set by a seller | Hardware that has to be kept running |
| A notice period you have to be told | Storage, backups and retention |
| A successor chosen for you, or not | Deciding which repository to use |
| A library somebody else may delete | Everything nobody else is doing for you |
Inclusion rule. Read from the repository listing and model card of the one publisher in this register that distributes weights rather than access. Order. What the arrangement removes first, then what it adds.
1The licence is the durable fact
What keeps a held copy usable is permission, which is stated on the model card rather than in any lifecycle table. That is a different kind of fact from a date, and it is why this arrangement gets a reading in a register about retirements.
It settles permission and not capability. Nothing about a licence guarantees the weights keep running on next year's toolchain, and nothing obliges the publisher to keep publishing updates.
2Procurement risk replaces schedule risk
If a listing comes down, nobody loses a running copy and anybody who has not fetched it yet loses the chance, including for new hardware later. That is a purchasing problem and it arrives without a date too.
The mitigation is keeping the weights rather than the address. No published state will remind a team to do it, which is the trade this arrangement makes.
3Neither arrangement is safer in the abstract
One carries uncertainty and the other carries overhead. Only the second can be budgeted in advance, which is a real advantage for anybody planning a long run of episodes.
The register records both without ranking them. The two arrangements read against each other set out what each one actually removes.
A definition rather than a dated entry: no line above is a vendor statement. Where this word turns up in a real notice, the wording and the date are on the succession reading for that publisher. Nearby terms: Inference, 410 Gone, Region availability.