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Genius Gateway - License

The Genius Gateway project uses different licenses for different components to ensure open sharing for personal and educational purposes while prohibiting commercial use.

License Overview

Component License Applies To Details
Hardware Design CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 PCB designs, schematics, CAD files, mechanical drawings Hardware Design
Software AGPL-3.0 + Commons Clause ESP32 firmware, protocol implementation, backend services, web interface Software
Documentation CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 All documentation, guides, images, traces, downloadable content Documentation and Assets
Third-Party Components Various (LGPL, MIT, etc.) ESP32 SvelteKit, Arduino libraries, PsychicHttp, other dependencies Third-Party Components

Commercial Use Prohibited

All Genius Gateway components (hardware, software, documentation) prohibit commercial use without explicit permission. See Commercial Use for details.

Hardware Design

Applies to: PCB designs, schematics, CAD files, mechanical drawings

Files: docs/assets/downloads/cae/*, docs/assets/downloads/cad/*

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

You are free to:

  • Share: Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes
  • Adapt: Remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes

Under the following terms:

  • Attribution: You must give appropriate credit and indicate if changes were made
  • NonCommercial: You may not use the material for commercial purposes
  • ShareAlike: If you remix or transform the material, you must distribute under the same license

This license allows private and educational use while prohibiting commercial use without permission.

Software

Applies to: ESP32 firmware, protocol implementation, reverse engineering code, backend services, web interface

Files: src/*

License: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 with Commons Clause (AGPL-3.0 + Commons Clause)

License URL: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html

Copyright (C) 2024-2025 Genius Gateway Project

You are free to:

  • Use: Run the software for personal and educational purposes
  • Study: Access and study the source code
  • Modify: Create modified versions for personal and educational use
  • Share: Distribute the original or modified versions for non-commercial purposes

Under the following terms:

  • Source Code: Modified versions must be made available under the same license
  • NonCommercial: You may not sell, rent, lease, or otherwise use the software for commercial purposes
  • Attribution: You must give appropriate credit

AGPL-3.0 License Text

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Affero General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Affero General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Commons Clause License Condition v1.0

The Software is provided to you by the Licensor under the License, as defined below, subject to the following condition:

Without limiting other conditions in the License, the grant of rights under the License will not include, and the License does not grant to you, the right to Sell the Software.

For purposes of the foregoing, "Sell" means practicing any or all of the rights granted to you under the License to provide to third parties, for a fee or other consideration (including without limitation fees for hosting or consulting/support services related to the Software), a product or service whose value derives, entirely or substantially, from the functionality of the Software.

Note: Third-party frameworks and libraries (ESP32SvelteKit, Arduino, etc.) retain their original licenses. Please refer to their respective license files in the source code.

Rationale: The AGPL-3.0 with Commons Clause ensures that improvements to the reverse-engineered protocol implementation remain open source while prohibiting commercial use without permission.

Documentation and Assets

Applies to: All documentation, guides, images, traces, and downloadable content

Files: docs/*, README.md, CHANGELOG.md

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

You are free to:

  • Share: Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes
  • Adapt: Remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes

Under the following terms:

  • Attribution: You must give appropriate credit and indicate if changes were made
  • NonCommercial: You may not use the material for commercial purposes
  • ShareAlike: If you remix or transform the material, you must distribute under the same license

This license allows private and educational use while prohibiting commercial use without permission.

Attribution: "Genius Gateway Documentation by hmbacher (https://github.com/hmbacher/genius-gateway) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0"

Third-Party Components

This project builds upon and includes components from other open source projects. These third-party components retain their original licenses:

ESP32 SvelteKit Framework

  • License: LGPL v3 (backend), MIT (frontend)
  • Author: theelims
  • URL: https://github.com/theelims/ESP32-sveltekit
  • Usage: Base framework for ESP32 web applications
  • Note: The ESP32 SvelteKit framework retains its original licenses. Genius Gateway modifications and additions to the framework are licensed under AGPL-3.0 + Commons Clause.

Arduino Libraries

Various Arduino libraries used are subject to their respective licenses. See individual library documentation for details.

PsychicHttp

License Compatibility and Important Notes

Third-Party Dependencies

This project uses third-party libraries and frameworks that retain their original licenses:

  • ESP32 SvelteKit: LGPL v3 (backend), MIT (frontend)
  • PsychicHttp: LGPL v2.1
  • Arduino libraries: Various licenses (see respective library documentation)
  • Other dependencies: See individual library documentation for license details

License Interaction

  • Genius Gateway code is licensed under AGPL-3.0 + Commons Clause (more restrictive than underlying frameworks)
  • Third-party components retain their original licenses (LGPL, MIT, etc.)
  • Hardware designs (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) and Documentation (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) are independent of software licenses

  1. AGPL-3.0 Network Requirement: If you provide the software as a network service (e.g., hosting it on a server accessible to users), you must make the complete source code available to those users.

  2. Commons Clause Restriction: The Commons Clause prohibits selling the software or offering it as a paid service. This means:

  3. ❌ You cannot sell the software itself
  4. ❌ You cannot offer it as a hosted/SaaS service for a fee
  5. ❌ You cannot provide consulting/support services where the value primarily comes from the software
  6. ✅ You can use it personally or for educational purposes

  7. ✅ You can modify and share it non-commercially

  8. Hardware & Documentation: Both use CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, which prohibits commercial use without permission.

Commercial Use

All components (hardware, software, documentation) prohibit commercial use without explicit permission.

For commercial licensing inquiries or questions about licensing, please open an issue in the GitHub repository or contact the project maintainer.

Contact

For licensing questions, commercial use requests, or general inquiries: