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Outernet GPL violation

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Oct 12th, 2016
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  1. I think that Outernet is violating the GPL of librtlsdr and libmirisdr by releasing
  2. some of their software under a closed source licence.
  3.  
  4. Here you can see some of the Outernet software:
  5.  
  6. https://github.com/Outernet-Project/outernet-linux-lband3
  7.  
  8. The file bin/sdr100-1.0.4 is provided in binary form only under a
  9. closed-source licence. However, this binary links to librtlsdr and
  10. libmirisdr through some wrapper called StarSDR. StarSDR is licenced
  11. under the LGPLv3.
  12.  
  13. I am not a layer, but I believe that since StarSDR links to librtlsdr
  14. and libmirisdr, which are GPLv2 or later, then the combination is
  15. covered under the GPLv3. See the table in
  16. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility
  17.  
  18. Therefore, sdr100-1.0.4 should be released under a GPLv3-compatible licence.
  19.  
  20. I think that the argument that the wrapper StarSDR is LGPL and so
  21. sdr100-1.0.4 can be released under closed-source terms because it only
  22. links StarSDR directly does not work. It's very easy to write an LGPL
  23. wrapper for a GPL library, so if this sort of trick worked, then it would
  24. be pointless to licence libraries under the GPL (and not LGPL).
  25.  
  26. Can someone with legal experience give advice on whether my interpretation is correct?
  27. Please contact me at <daniel_AT_destevez.net>
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