The post answers rumors from the previous few days that Qwen4 would be the last open-weight Qwen series and that later models would be available only through an API. It shares an image of a statement it attributes to Qwen head Liu Dayiheng, saying future Qwen 4.0 and Qwen 5.0 models will continue to be open source, that AI's value should not belong to only a few people, and that the series has passed 3 billion downloads, 460 open-source models and 300,000 derivative models. We could not find a separate report of the Qwen 4/5 wording; 36Kr reported very similar remarks, and the same figures, from Liu's first appearance as Qwen's leader at Alibaba's conference in Hangzhou on September 22.

It was the top thread of our sweep relative to community size: about 4,800 upvotes and 500 comments in a 329,000-member community. The most-upvoted replies celebrate the pledge; others praise how capable Qwen's models are for their size. Skeptics point out that a company's 'forever' promise lasts only as long as its current management and business conditions, and a few add that it holds only as long as China's government allows it.