The Licensing Conundrum of JNOS 2.0 - July 4, 2024 I have been asked several times about the licensing terms of JNOS 2.0, and to be honest, it's a conundrum, it's very confusing - to me anyways. I am not a lawyer, and all these different licensing models are way above my head ... My take is that JNOS is for amateur radio, education, or personal use only. It's not for commercial use, or is it ? under limited terms before my time ? I can not speak for contributors and original authors, even though they might agree with me on this, but I don't think people should be profitting on our efforts. I think it is important to acknowledge the work of these people, so if you decide to borrow any of this code, then please have the courtesy to at least leave the original credits in place, or give credit to those who wrote and contributed the code. I have tried multiple times to reach a higher power or two, to get some guidance on how to properly license this software, but I have received NO answer at all. What really complicates things is the fact JNOS 2.0 is actually a mix of public domain, freeware, shareware, various GPL licenses, other licenses and/or terms, and copyright, and there are portions of JNOS that have made it into the ax25 utils, linux, various tcp/ip stacks, and even commercial software, and more. I have noticed some folks taking the JNOS 2.0 code and putting it entirely under the GPL 3.0 license, which I can't justify, and I don't think should be doing either, considering the complications noted above - just saying. If I can't even get hold of the original authors, contributors, and so on, to get their approvals, terms of use, whatever, then there is no justification in me even trying to put the entire JNOS 2.0 project under a GPL or other license model out there. JNOS 2.0 is an evolution of JNOS 1.11f - the same diff ... So the best I can do perhaps is note a few publicly available comments on the matter, and lastly show you the content of my current 'copyright.txt file'. a) wget "ftp://ftp.ucsd.edu/hamradio/packet/tcpip/ka9q/gpl/ka9q_gpl.tar.gz.txt" From Bruce Perens AB6YM, 29-December-1994 "Phil Karn KA9Q has graciously agreed to make a small subset of the source files of his "KA9Q NOS" program available under the GNU General Public License, Version 2 (the "GPL"), as well as his current licensing terms (the "KA9Q license"). I asked Phil to dual-license these files so that we could include his AX.25 protocol stack within the Linux kernel, which is a GPL-ed program." This part below is important to note I think : "Please note that Phil has _NOT_ GPL-ed the entirety of NOS, only the few source files related to the AX.25 and KISS protocols that I asked for. The TCP/IP stack within NOS is explicitly _NOT_ included in the files that have been released under the GPL. All of the files of NOS, including those that are available under the GPL, are still available under the KA9Q license, which made them free for use by ham radio operators and schools, and required a payment from others." b) an excerpt from Geek of the Week, Phil Karn, 01/26/1994 REF -> http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/geek-of-the-week-phil-karn' Karn: "KA9Q [snip] that name has gotten applied to a package of software I wrote primarily for amateur packet radio use. It does TCP/IP under DOS machines. However it has found quite a following beyond amateur radio. And a lot of are people running it who have nothing to do with amateur radio" Interviewer: "so this is a public domain TCP/IP implementation?" Karn: "Well, quasi public domain. It's ..." Interviewer: "Freely available." Karn: "Freely available, yes. I encourage for use by anyone in an academic setting or amateur radio setting. It's kinda shareware in other environments, and anyone who wants to put it into a product should come talk to me. It's been the basis of a number of commercial products [snip]" c) then I saw this on a freedos.org wiki site some years ago : "In 2002 KA9Q became free software (GNU GPL). Its descendants, JNOS and EZ-NOS (see also here and here) are still actively maintained." again, I'm not so sure about that, was 2002 only about the reed_solomon code ? d) then I wondered what was done with the TNOS software : For those who don't know, I actually started off as a TNOS maintainer, but decided at some point to switch my efforts to JNOS, and so started JNOS 2.0, October 2004. "TNOS is based on the previous works of KA9Q, WG7J, and many others. Any copyrights or other restriction by these authors are still in effect. In addition, all TNOS additions, extensions, and re-works are copyright 1992-96 by Brian A. Lantz and are made availble under the same conditions." "TNOS is provided AS-IS, with absolutely no promises, warranties, or illusions of grandeur. Let the non-buyer beware!" That's more or less how I see it and JNOS as well, but then I saw this in between : "As of release 3.00, TNOS is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Since KA9Q NOS was re-released under the GPL, the current and future versions of TNOS will also be GPL'ed." And so I am thinking, I don't believe KA9Q NOS was ever re-released in its entirety under GPL, despite various sources online saying so. Again, the complications given earlier, suggest it is not possible to put the entire JNOS code under GPL, without first contacting previous authors and contributors, which seems a dead end. The WGET item earlier above says it all - not aware of any updates to it e) then I ran into the 'JNOS in Debian' thread recently - it got a bit testy (this was back in 2015, lists.debian.org, you can google it if you like) and there's more, if you can find it, very frustrating, that's all I can do f) my latest copyright.txt file for the JNOS 2.0 project is noted below /* * The JNOS 2.0 project began in October of 2004, and is an evolution of the * original JNOS 1.11f project by James P. Dugal (N5KNX) and contributors. I * have taken the original JNOS 1.11f project, and rebranded it as JNOS 2.0, * but with significant bug fixes, enhancements, new features, and so on. * * Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:30:51 -0500 (CDT) * From: "Dugal James P." * To: maiko@pcs.mb.ca * Subject: Jnos 2.0 ... glad to hear it! * * Maiko - I am happy to hear you are extending Jnos ... I have not been * very active and so am please you are carrying the "baton" forward! * Have fun with it ... I sure did! * 73, * --James n5knx * jpd@louisiana.edu * * JNOS 2.0 is based on the previous works of many people. Most notable are * Phil Karn (KA9Q), Johan Reinalda (WG7J), Gerard van der Grinten (PA0GRI), * Anders Klemets (SM0RGV), Kevin Hill (G1EMM), James Dugal (N5KNX), Brandon * Allbery (KF8NH), Barry Siegfried (K2MF), Brian Lantz (KO4KS), and others. * * If I am missing anyone, it's not on purpose - please do let me know. * * Copyrights and other restrictions by these authors are still in effect ! * * All JNOS 2.0 additions, enhancements, extensions, code restructuring, bug * fixes, and so on, are Copyright (C) 2004-2025 by Maiko Langelaar, VE4KLM, * unless otherwise noted (ie, contributions from other authors or sources). * */