alt Hacker NewsWhen it says civilian agencies are ordered to purge all "third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations", what does that actually mean? Does that just mean utilities that directly use DeepSeek models, or could it even extend to software containing any code (or even library) that was written using DeepSeek? Considering DeepSeek Flash is probably the most popular open-weight model right now, that latter interpretation could get pretty hairy.
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that sounds like a directive that was written to be vague enough to scare any government contractor away from using deepseek for anything ever.
Would this include American models that where distilled from them? I'm thinking of the Anthropic models which respond as Deepseek when prompted in Chinese. More good news for OpenAI, I guess.
Doesn't sound like the liability lies with the library maintainers, sounds up to the government agency to do their due diligence, but also sounds unenforceable as well
What happens if Linux includes Deepseek code now? All dependencies are poisonous?
> what does that actually mean?
It means whatever they decide to enforce. The idea that the current administration considers itself constrained by the letter of any specific law or regulation (even its own) should be cold dead by now. But people still insist on treating with specifics out of habit I guess.
As others here are pointing out (somewhat obliquely, frustratingly), the Occam's explanation for this particular action is just that it's a solicitation for a bribe.
That's effectively banning all open source, since at this point it's hard to find an open source project that doesn't have at least a few lines of code produced using it :)
My interpretation was software vibecoded with DeepSeek models. Primarily through some aggregating harness like OpenCode or Pi
> could it even extend to software containing any code (or even library) that was written using DeepSeek?
Clearly yes.
And more. "Developed using" is not just included code.
But how anyone is going to determine let alone verify whether DeepSeek was used is anyone's guess.
The order is limited to DeepSeek as a corporate entity and "implementations" means third party software that purchases and uses products directly from DeepSeek.
> For purposes of this Order, an individual or business is an "affiliated entity" or "affiliate" of DeepSeek AG if, directly or indirectly, either one controls or can control the other; or a third party controls or can control both.
This does not apply to open model weights, which are not a product or service, and does not apply to independent hosts of model weights if they have no affiliation with DeepSeek as defined.