18. License and Third Party

License and Third-Party

Language: English. Chinese version: 18. License and Third-Party (中文)

This page records only what can be confirmed directly from the current repository and the most easily overlooked third-party resource boundaries when using Trail Mate. If something is not explicitly documented in-repo or still depends on outside verification, it is marked accordingly rather than being guessed.

Main Project License

The main repository currently includes the standard GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 text, which means AGPLv3.

The root-level COPYRIGHT file also makes two additional points explicit:

• the default project license is AGPLv3
• manufacturer integration, commercial products, or other scenarios that do not wish to comply with AGPLv3 should be discussed separately with the author under a commercial license path

COPYRIGHT also states that commercial rights are not granted by default. So the fact that the code is public should not be read as meaning any commercial integration is automatically permitted.

What That Means In Practice

If you are only reading, testing, studying, or building the project privately, the repository license may be all you need to start with.

If you intend to do any of the following, you should not stop at “it is open source”:

• distribute devices with preloaded firmware
• integrate the code into a closed-source system
• provide networked or redistributed services built on it
• productize it inside an organization

In those cases, you should read LICENSE, COPYRIGHT, and NOTICE together and decide whether separate commercial licensing needs to be discussed.

Relationship To Trail Mate Center

Trail Mate Center is a separate repository. It is not part of the main firmware repository tree. The locally available companion repository also carries an AGPLv3 license text, but it should still be treated as its own repository with its own license file and notices.

That means the main project wiki can describe Center as part of the same system workflow, but should not imply that the firmware repository alone fully defines every licensing detail for the companion tool.

Third-Party Dependencies That Can Be Confirmed In-Repo

At least one vendored third-party directory is directly visible in the current repository:

• third_party/codec2

That already shows the project is not dependency-free. However, the wiki still does not include a complete dependency ledger listing every third-party component, its source, version, and license.

Other dependency classes that clearly exist in engineering terms but do not yet have a fully audited wiki ledger include:

• dependencies fetched through PlatformIO, ESP-IDF, and related build systems
• generated code such as protobuf outputs
• upstream interface or reference materials related to Meshtastic, MeshCore, and other interoperable protocol ecosystems

The accurate status for that broader ledger is therefore: still to be completed.

Map Data Is Not Automatically “Open Because The Firmware Is”

Trail Mate’s map capability depends on offline resources, but the firmware repository itself does not ship a bundled public map dataset that can automatically be redistributed under the same assumptions as the code.

In practice, base maps, contours, satellite imagery, and related resources usually come from external sources and are prepared by the user or with the companion tool.

This means:

• the firmware being open source does not automatically make the map resources freely redistributable
• different map sources can have very different usage terms
• satellite imagery, terrain sources, and contour data may all follow different licensing conditions

If you use Trail Mate Center to fetch, cache, generate, or export map resources, Center is only a tool. It does not inherit or rewrite the original upstream data-source license terms for you.

Minimum Questions To Confirm Before Redistributing Map Data

Before distributing devices, publishing images, sharing offline bundles, or doing commercial integration, confirm at least:

• what the base-map source is and whether caching, offline export, and redistribution are permitted
• what the terrain or contour source is and whether it requires extra attribution or authorization
• whether the satellite imagery source allows long-term offline caching or repackaging
• whether your product, documentation, or deliverable must preserve attribution or source notices

This matters because the map chain is one of Trail Mate’s core capabilities. Ignoring those boundaries creates compliance risk right at the center of the product.

The Role Of NOTICE

The main repository also includes NOTICE.md and NOTICE_CN.md. They are not license texts in themselves, but they add practical guidance around scope, contacting the author, commercial integration, and usage boundaries.

A practical reading order is:

• LICENSE explains the default license grant
• COPYRIGHT adds the commercial-licensing and default-rights boundary
• NOTICE explains situations where further coordination may be needed

For anyone planning long-term deployment or integration, those three should be read together.

Ledgers Still Worth Completing

The most important missing records today are:

• a complete third-party library ledger with source, version, and license
• a clearer note on the ownership and usage of protocol-related upstream materials
• a comparison table for recommended map, terrain, and imagery sources and their license boundaries

Until those ledgers are completed, distribution and commercial use should not be based on “it is probably fine”.