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Legal and Redistribution

Diagram showing legal and redistribution checks from third-party license inventory through release archives, live ISO aggregate licensing, SPDX source headers, copyleft review, and release checklist

routerd itself is distributed under the BSD 3-Clause License. The full license text is in the repository root as LICENSE.

The routerd copyright notice is:

Copyright (c) 2026 Kirino Minato <kirino.minato@gmail.com> (https://github.com/imksoo) and routerd contributors

This page summarizes the practical redistribution rules for routerd release archives and the routerd live ISO. It is an operational note, not legal advice.

routerd binaries​

The routerd binaries are built from Go source code in this repository. Before a release, run:

make third-party-licenses

That command regenerates THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md. It lists:

  • Go modules linked into routerd binaries
  • detected license text type
  • license file name
  • module source URL
  • Ubuntu base-package source and license metadata guidance

The current audit path checks Go module license files for GPL, LGPL, and AGPL text. If such a linked Go module appears, stop the release and review whether the routerd binary license needs to change or the dependency needs to be removed.

Source files use SPDX identifiers such as:

SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause

Those headers identify the routerd source license. They do not change the licenses of bundled tools, OS packages, Go modules, or other third-party components listed in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.

Release archives​

Release archives contain:

  • routerd binaries
  • installer scripts
  • systemd or rc.d service templates
  • sample configuration
  • share/doc/LICENSE
  • share/doc/THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md

When redistributing a release archive, keep those files with the archive.

Live ISO​

The current live ISO is built from Ubuntu using debootstrap (the default suite is noble). The generated inventory points to Ubuntu archive metadata for the base OS packages; it is not a complete per-package source inventory. Review the source and license information for the exact base release before redistributing an image.

The live ISO is an aggregate distribution. It combines:

  • routerd binaries and scripts
  • Ubuntu base files
  • Ubuntu packages such as dnsmasq, nftables, WireGuard tools, ppp, iproute2, chrony, tcpdump, and related utilities

Those OS packages keep their own upstream licenses. Some are GPL licensed. The live ISO is not relicensed as a single GPL work.

The live ISO includes the routerd notices at:

/usr/local/share/doc/routerd/LICENSE
/usr/local/share/doc/routerd/THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt

Source information for the Ubuntu base packages is available from Ubuntu archive metadata for the release used to build the ISO, as explained in THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.

Release checklist​

Before publishing a release:

  1. Run make third-party-licenses.
  2. Confirm the Go module copyleft check reports no GPL, LGPL, or AGPL module.
  3. Confirm GPL-family licenses only appear in separately distributed OS packages or other external tools.
  4. Run the normal test, schema, example, website, archive, and live ISO checks.
  5. Confirm release archives include share/doc/LICENSE and share/doc/THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.
  6. Confirm the live ISO includes /usr/local/share/doc/routerd/.

If the dependency set changes substantially, review this page and the generated license inventory before tagging the release.