OpenWRT One router & legal related questions

For Developers
1

Hi, first of all I'm very grateful and many thanks to all the developers who are a part of this (and any other open source) project. I've been using Arch Linux from long ago and started using OpenWRT this year and I'm absolutely thankful to everyone for making our lives easier and saving us from the evil wrath of:-NVIDIA, Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Microsoft, Meta and many more.

I'm reaching on behalf of my company which intends to deploy community networks (just the way done in Latin America by LibreRouter). However, we've decided to make some modifications to the hardware specifications to make the manufacturing slightly cheaper and tuned to our use. Could anyone please answer these questions:-

  1. Is it possible to get hold of the full PCB (kicad__pro) and/or gerber files please? We'll arrange a contract fairly and oblige by the license and all extra terms requested

2.Is it legal to reverse engineer the hardware and sell it for community-use after modifications?

  1. Could you please confirm if the license associated with the OpenWRT One is:-
  • Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International (as mentioned on openwrt.org) or
  • GPLv2 (from OpenWRT and other sources)

I'll share any further details required on your request. Thanks! ;

2

Just pointing to roughly related previous discussions.

Disclaimer: I'm just playing search engine here, I can't answer your question.

3

I can direct you to this Forum Topic on this point.

Proper Contact for this should be directed to https://openwrt.org/contact#corporate_contact

1 Like
4

Oops, sorry for not noticing earlier. Thanks a lot for your kind help Sir! ;

5

Hello Sir,

I did email the required step including personally emailing @aparcar about this issue in detail.

But I haven't received any reply or confirmation about this from anywhere. Please confirm about this issue, Thanks! ;

6

I'm not sure anyone is actively monitoring the corporate email address: https://lists.openwrt.org/pipermail/openwrt-adm/2025-May/002739.html

1 Like
7

Ping @hauke

8

Just for future reference - you generally wouldn't ask this question to the OEM. :wink:

Of the hardware (?) or software?

Or PCB/gerber files? :smiley:

A good time to note that OpenWrt is a Linux distribution (software) generally used on embedded systems.

Except where otherwise noted, content on this wiki is licensed under the following license:
CC Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

~from Wiki - same sentence you mention (emphasis added to the item referenced in your post)

I hope you ask clear questions or employ an attorney for your project contact to the developers. Best of luck!

9

Thank you for the frank reply. Reading it back, I completely understand your concern, sincere apologies for my clumsy wording.

My goal is to ensure the project operates as ethical and community-supported in the OpenWRT ecosystem. I myself am a long term ArchLinux user (Yes, I use Arch and OpenWRT btw XD) and have also installed GentooOS

Let me try to be much clearer by stating our understanding and our intentions corresponding to these concerns.

  1. Software:- From the best of our understanding, we understand that the software/firmware is GPLv2 and we'll fully comply by it. This is absolutely necessary as we will definitely want to offer official OpenWRT support and list it under the Table of hardware section

  2. Hardware Schematic License: Based on the wiki and the project's open-source nature, I believe the KiCAD schema files and others at one.openwrt.org/hardware/ are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (Attribution-ShareAlike) ? Could you please confirm if this allows us to reverse engineer and resell after modifications?

  3. Our Obligation(s) under "ShareAlike" license: From the CC BY-SA 4.0 license it seems that if we use these schematics to redesign and sell a newer router, we are obligated to publish our modified design files (schematics) under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Please let me know if I'm wrong or there are any additions required here. Thanks! ;

1 Like
10

@lleachii Could you please confirm if our understandings are correct with these or if there are any deviations?

Thanks! ;

11

Please refrence this post:

12

I've already done that Sir.

No reply from their side despite contacting one person personally. It's been 10 days ;

13

This forum is populated by volunteers and users of OpenWrt focused on the support and usage of the OpenWrt platform of supported devices.

No one member here can properly confirm or refute your questions on this topic with any authority. We can only try to direct you to likely sources that might be able to assist you.

To that end, I have also tagged an active dev to take a look at this topic for comment. You might also consider posting to the Adm or Devel Mailing Lists:

Openwrt is also a member project of the Software Freedom Conservacy - https://sfconservancy.org/about/contact/ that might also be able to provide you some guidance on this topic.

14

Sure Thanks! I'll check this out ;