Developing Closed Product Based on Omega2

hc

Not fully related to this topic but

Can I develop a closed product with your module by doing a few customizations in your firmware? e.g. domain, name / http server / and also some default applications in the customized firmware.
If yes, Should I follow any license of you? Any mark on the product regarding onion or any visualization on the user manual or http server about that I am powered by onion and/or openwrt etc?
If all is OK then what is your plan for the duration of availability? 2 years later, will still be producing this module?

Thanks,

crispyoz

@hc

Firmware is based up on OpenWrt which is open source. GLPv2
As above
Onion have stated Omega2s will be available until 2025 (https://onion.io/omega2s/)

Lazar Demin

@hc To expand on what @crispyoz said:

The firmware is open source under the GPLv2 license. According to the license, you will need to publish your customizations with the same license.

However, that doesn't preclude you from creating and including closed-source software packages in your firmware.

crispyoz

An important clarification @Lazar-Demin thank you.

To spell it out for new players.

I use Omega 2S+ on my custom PCB that powers my IoT devices. While the firmware is based upon Onion's customised version of OpenWrt, my software that runs on the devices is closed source since it does not customise OpenWrt in any way, it simply uses it as a platform.

Open source licensing and particularly GPL is a tricky license, so it is important to familiarise yourself with the the various open source licenses (Apache, GPLv2/v3, LGPL, Eclipse, MIT, Mozilla), pay attention to anything licenced under AGPLv3.

hc

@Lazar-Demin @crispyoz Thank you very much! But I am a bit confused. I have also checked the GPLv2 license to get a bit more familiar as you already suggested.
My understanding is, if we are developing a software based on stack whose license is GPLv2 license (openWRT in this case), then we must publish it to somewhere which means it mush be open-source and publicly accessible.

But @crispyoz Your last post makes me a bit confused. You mentioned you have closed product because you did not change anything in openWRT.
Actually my plan is developing a closed product based on onion 2s+. But I am planning to disable ssh and also I will change the web interface which is used to configure the device.
To disable ssh and also o remove non-used modules, I am planning to rebuild the sources of onion omega. But sources are also based on openWRT.
In this case, what is my responsbility to onion.io & openWRT?
Should I make my new image publicly accessible?

Another question, I can also disable ssh and uhttpd in application. Then It will be a kind of application code. So, I guess I will not in change of publishing anything, correct?
Thanks again for details.

hc

@crispyoz @Lazar-Demin
Apparently, it is also discused in openWRT forum, but I still would like to see you comments on my questions if possible for you.
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/license-compliance/35479/3

crispyoz

@hc Making changes to the firmware image is not changing the underlying software, GPL requires you to publish your source if you were for example customising the source code of uhttp (OpenWrt web server). Where you are simply disabling ssh, install new modules and removing unused components you are not performing any customisation of the GPL'd code, you are simply configuring it.

The discussion you are referring to on the OpenWrt forum is a bit different, the poster was suggesting removing all logos and attribution and customising some of the existing applications, this would certainly violate most licenses. Your post does not suggest to me that this is what you are proposing. As I understand your question, you are asking if you can use OpenWrt/Onion firmware to install you custom closed source application(s) without needing to opensource your code.

You do need to be careful when you are using some third party libraries as they can have stipulations for example nmap which uses their own license which seems to be based upon GPLv2 stipulates that you cannot include nmap in commercial products.

Some grey areas are where you may statically link GPL'd code with your custom code, this allows the authors to argue your product is a derived product and hence would need to be licensed under GPLvX.

As i am not qualified to give you legal advice, please consider the above as a personal interpretation of the various licenses.

hc

@crispyoz Thank you very much for your message. It is more clear now after also checking again and again the small details of GPL. Thanks again!