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Assess · GLM-4-9B-Chat

Can you own it?

Ownership levelLimitednone·limited·partial·substantial·fullAnalytical input D ยท 52.8/100

This page is a projection of the one entry record, the Use & modify and Transparency factors that Assess covers. The full verdict is set by all four factors together, floor-weighted so the weakest caps the whole.

Which domain expands which factor
  • AssessUse & modify + Transparency
  • ImplementData control + Reliability
  • UseReliability
  • SupportTransparency

Intended & out-of-scope use

The original GLM-4-9B-Chat (THUDM, mid-2024) is a 9B dense chat model - with a 128K variant and a 1M-context GLM-4-9B-Chat-1M - that predates Zhipu's move to MIT. It is intended as a small general assistant. It is a separate entry from the current MIT GLM line (the glm entry) because its weights are governed by the custom, non-OSI "glm-4" licence.

Out-of-scope: any commercial use without completing the licence's registration; any use that breaches the field-of-use terms (military, illegal, national-security-endangering); and, for new work generally, any case where a current model would do - this is a dated 2024 checkpoint superseded within its own family.

Known limitations, bias & failure modes

Two limitations dominate. First, the licence: revocable, commercial-registration-gated, with a mandatory "glm-4" name prefix and "Built with glm-4" attribution. Second, dated capability: a 2024 9B superseded by GLM-4-9B-0414 and the 4.5/4.6 line. It also carries China-aligned alignment, ships no first-party guard, and has closed training data and code.

Openness tier & components

gated_open tier (dimension score 2). The weights are downloadable and free for academic research, but commercial use is registration-gated and the grant is revocable, with training data and code closed. That sits a notch below the MIT GLM cluster's open-weights 3 - the commercial path is gated and the grant can be withdrawn.

License terms & what you may do

This is the reason for the split. The weights are governed by the custom non-OSI "glm-4" licence: the copyright grant is "non-exclusive, worldwide, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable, royalty-free". Academic research is free, but "commercial users must complete registration" before any business use. You must display "Built with glm-4" and derivative model names must begin with "glm-4". Use for military, illegal, or national-security-endangering purposes is forbidden. It is governed by PRC law, with disputes to Beijing's Haidian District People's Court (contact license@zhipuai.cn). A revocable, registration-gated grant with a name-prefix rule is why use-and-modify is weak and ownership is limited - the low end of the GLM family, and far below the MIT line.

Supply-chain provenance

The canonical source is the verified THUDM organisation on Hugging Face, safetensors with checksums, no malicious-checkpoint incident (checklist ~4/8). Widely mirrored and quantized as a small 2024 model - each mirror is a separate artifact whose trust equals its uploader, and redistribution must carry the glm-4 licence (including the "Built with glm-4" and name-prefix rules). Pin the revision, verify the checksum, prefer the canonical org.

EU AI Act posture

GPAI but not systemic-risk (a 9B model). Unlike the MIT GLM line, the glm-4 licence is not FOSS (revocable, registration-gated, field-of-use and naming restrictions), so the Article 53 open-source exemption does not apply on the licence axis. The systemic-risk duties do not arise, but the transparency obligations are not exemption-covered, and no copyright policy or training-content summary is published. The commercial-registration and naming duties bind downstream, under PRC governing law. Legal scores 2.

Benchmarks & evaluation

Capable for a mid-2024 9B, but dated by 2026 and superseded within its family. OneHill has not re-run any benchmarks, so performance is a 2 (below-average current capability) and no specific figures are asserted as verified.

How this scores

The ownership factors this domain covers, drawn from the one entry record.

1

Use and modify freelyCan you run, modify and adapt it with no gate and no field-of-use trap?

Weak

The glm-4 licence is non-OSI and REVOCABLE, gates commercial use behind a registration form, forbids military/illegal/national-security use, and forces every derivative to display 'Built with glm-4' and to prefix its name with 'glm-4'. A revocable, registration-gated grant with mandatory naming is the weakest use-and-modify position in the GLM family - weak.

How this scores (AOI sub-dimensions)
Openness2/5how much is released - weights, data, code, licence - and how freelyGated-open: the weights are downloadable and free for academic research, but commercial use is registration-gated and the grant is revocable, with training data and code closed.
Legal2/5how permissive and clean the licence is for real commercial useThe worst legal position in the GLM family: a non-OSI licence that is REVOCABLE, gates commercial use behind registration, restricts fields of use, mandates "Built with glm-4" and a name prefix, and is governed by PRC law (Haidian court) - with no EU copyright policy or training-content summary and no open-source exemption.
2

TransparencyDo you know what it is: weights, training, behaviour, and legible terms?

Moderate

Weights are inspectable and there is a model card, but training data and code are closed and the model carries China-aligned alignment you cannot inspect - open weights but closed process, so moderate.

How this scores (AOI sub-dimensions)
Provenance3/5how well we can trace and verify what went into the modelVerified THUDM org on Hugging Face, safetensors with checksums, clear canonical source, no malicious-checkpoint incident (checklist ~4/8).
Governance3/5how accountable and well-documented the publisher isActive, named publisher (Zhipu AI / THUDM) with a verified org and a licence contact (license@zhipuai.cn), meeting the score-3 anchor.
What this means for adoptionYou have only limited ownership of the original GLM-4-9B-Chat: the custom glm-4 licence is revocable, gates commercial use behind registration, restricts fields of use, and forces a 'glm-4' name prefix and 'Built with glm-4' attribution on every derivative - so use-and-modify is weak and your continued-use control is contingent. Combined with dated capability, ownership lands at limited, the low end of the GLM family and well below the MIT GLM line (the `glm` entry, substantial). Use this checkpoint only if you specifically need it: complete the commercial registration, honour the naming and field-of-use terms, and account for the revocable grant - otherwise adopt the MIT GLM models instead.

Sources

The same evidence records as the entry sheet. Read means the text was verified; unverified means it is known to exist but not yet read.

Licenceread2026-08-03
THUDM/glm-4-9b LICENSE, read: [Sec 2] "a non-exclusive, worldwide, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable, royalty-free copyright license"; free for academic research; "Commercial users must complete registration ...
Model cardread2026-08-03
GLM-4-9B-Chat model card on the verified THUDM HF org: a 9B dense chat model with a 128K context (and a 1M-context GLM-4-9B-Chat-1M variant), safetensors; broad serving (vLLM, transformers, llama.cpp, Ollama) and extensive community quants; a mid-2024 release.
Third-party analysisunverified2026-08-03
GLM-4-9B-Chat was a capable small model at its mid-2024 release but is dated by 2026 and superseded within its own family by GLM-4-9B-0414 and the 4.5/4.6 line.
Third-party analysisunverified2026-08-03
GLM chat models carry China-aligned alignment on politically sensitive topics and ship no companion guard model; the original 9B's safety tuning is older/lighter than current practice.
Third-party analysisunverified2026-08-03
The glm-4 licence is revocable and gates commercial use behind registration with field-of-use and naming restrictions (non-FOSS), so no open-source exemption applies; no EU copyright policy or training-content summary is published, and the licence is governed by PRC law.