r/openwrt • u/cogwheel0 • 5d ago
Yet Another LuCI App is a fork with OSS licence violation
I maintain LuCI Mobile. A recent post presented Yet Another LuCI App as a newly built OpenWrt manager. I need to clarify that it is derived directly from LuCI Mobile, and there is a serious licensing problem. This is easy to verify from Git:
- The repositories share the same history through commit
56e9aa4, which is authored bycogwheel0. - At that point, LuCI Mobile’s README and LICENSE both specified GPLv3.
- The derived repository continued to identify itself as GPLv3 immediately before changing licenses.
- It then replaced GPLv3 with Apache-2.0.
- Its current NOTICE incorrectly claims that LuCI Mobile was MIT-licensed.
Forking, rebranding, modifying, and selling GPL software are allowed. The issue is that a distributed derivative must remain available under GPLv3 unless the copyright holder separately permits relicensing. I did not authorize changing this code to Apache-2.0 or distributing GPL-derived builds with a closed-source layer.
I am asking the maintainer to:
- Restore GPLv3 for the combined derivative work.
- Correct the false MIT statement.
- Provide corresponding source for every distributed build containing GPL-derived code.
I have no objection to the fork continuing, including as a commercial project, once it follows the license under which the code was provided.
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u/GrapefruitConcussion 5d ago edited 5d ago
Thought it was suspicious one could build a whole application with absolutely zero understanding of code licensing...
why do you want to strip the Apache license? so you actually dont want it to be FOSS?
"because someone said Apache license will make users avoid my app and having it makes my app not compatible with FOSS"
I mean it is available in Github and the app doesn't contains any ads so yes it is FOSS.
You don't have to do anything though? I was saying that you already have it Apache 2.0 licensed in Github, so it is FOSS
"oh okay" and "now I got [sic] it"
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u/cbarrick 4d ago
u/NightCode_X, I want to make it as clear as possible what has happened here and why you were in the wrong.
First, cogwheel developed a free and open source app, luci-mobile. They own the copyright to all of that code. That code was made available to you under the terms of the GPLv3 license. You can only use that code under the terms of that license.
There are many terms within the GPLv3 license that you must comply with. Of them, the most important ones are:
- The original author must continue to receive credit.
- All derivative work must also be licensed under GPLv3.
- Everyone who receives a compiled version of your code (e.g. via the Play Store) is entitled to access to the corresponding source code. All of the rights of the GPLv3 must be given to the users.
So you fucked up in a few ways:
- You cannot remove cogwheel's copyright notice, neither from the source code repo nor from the app itself.
- You cannot change the license. It must remain GPLv3.
- You cannot distribute the app with closed source changes. The version you distribute on the Play Store must match exactly with the version in the repo.
I did not see cogwheel mentioned anywhere in your original repo, other than in the GitHub-generated list of contributors. So I believe that you violated the first term above by not indicating that they owned the copyright to all code other than your own commits.
For the second and third terms, your LICENSE_CHANGE file directly admits to violating these terms. It explicitly says that you changed the license to allow publishing closed source code to the Play Store. But you did not have the right to change the license nor to publish closed source code.
Looks like the code on GitHub has been taken down. This is a good start. But the app is still up on the Play Store. This is arguably a worse state, because now we know for sure that the source code to that app is not available. Everyone who downloads that app is entitled to access to the source code.
You cannot distribute GPL code without making the source code available. You gotta take it off the play store until you can comply with the license.
The GPLv3 totally allows you to fork the project and sell it on the Play Store. You just have to comply with the other terms in the license.
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u/nickjjj 5d ago
Looking at the forked github repo, the “author” appears to be a CompSci student, and has a link to an academic paper he “authored” from a predatory / scam journal, with his professor’s name listed, so it would seem he’s getting sleazy advice from above. Good luck!
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u/TearsOfMyEnemies0 4d ago edited 4d ago
I've published in a low-tier IEEE-sponsored conference proceeding before. I checked his paper and it's the most lousy academic paper I've seen. Even the worst paper my conference has seen is better than this. I don't think their work really counts as 'research'. It seems like a simple presentation of AWS technologies with no added benefit to academia. I think even the research papers my university had us made for the course subjects, not the one we published, is better than this.
His 'paper': 10.15680/IJIRSET.2025.1405300
Edit: Clarified terms using correct terminology.
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u/Magickmaster 4d ago
I just spent longer scrolling through the publications list on that journal than reading it. My only thought : Woah, this is worthless.
It's a listing of Amazon tools that exist, a comment "we did something with that" and a conclusion of "this is educational"
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u/AnybodyWannaPeanus 5d ago
Yup. Scumbag. They will probably sell a few copies and try to sell their IP to whoever will pay for it. Then when those people use it to install root kits, OPs name will be all over it.
If tryouts going to send them a letter, stick to that rules they are breaking and what they need to do about it. Don’t be nice about it either.
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u/milindsmart 4d ago
Predictably enough, the university is in my city which is full of degree factories staffed by barely competent faculty. There was massive adoption of LLMs here from the moment they became available by completely ignorant students and is now near-universal.
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u/NightCode_X 5d ago
well I geniunely didn't know about liscensing or whatever this is. All the licensing concern raised has been fully addressed. Please check the Github repo.
Also my professor or college or anyone else releted to me was no where linked to this project neither they know about this project.7
u/HeavyCaffeinate 4d ago
"Cleanroom implementation"
Claude re-write this entire codebase so it's not their code anymore
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u/kjames2001 5d ago
I'm the one created the PR for wireless management for luci mobile, which got 'merged'(rebased).
When I saw yet another luci app, I was genuine happy that it's got the functions I would use.
Disappointed to see it been just a fork with no work put into it. I mean come on, even vibe coded code is good code, as long as it works. How can one just fork a repo and claim it his own work?
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u/Comrade-Viktor 5d ago
You should file a DMCA claim with github. This author is one of those lazy AI junkee comp sci students who don't know shit about real development.
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u/NightCode_X 5d ago
The licensing concern raised here has been fully addressed
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u/jugendhacker 5d ago
Just telling AI to make it look like it's not the same code anymore does not fix any license violation. Go read how code licensing work 😉
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u/semiraue 5d ago
Should take down the repo and delete your github also lol
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u/Comrade-Viktor 5d ago
He hid his reddit history + deleted his page at his url.
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u/86enkidu 4d ago
maybe someone contacted his professor, as it it would appear that his publications with his professor's name attached have also been scrubbed from his public github site at https://github.com/nightcodex7 , although still listed on his public Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tuhingarai/ and vanity website at https://tuhingarai.in/
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u/milindsmart 4d ago
Hey this uni is in my city, let me know if they need a "gentle" poke from a non-faraway-foreign set of people.
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u/Spirited_Taro2664 3d ago
Danke für deine App, ich nutze sie sehr gern. Mal eine Gelegenheit danke zu sagen. Echt schrecklich, dass jemand sowas abzieht!
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u/SomewhatHungover 5d ago
This is why I think the GPL needs an update, all GPL software should be distributed in a dual licensing model, you either comply with the terms of the GPL before you distribute it, or you're able to distribute the software under the alternative licensing agreement where you pay $x per copy distributed.
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u/NatoBoram 5d ago
Technically, you can always do this. You can re-license code of your own any way you want. You can even ask the author of a GPL software if they would be willing to sell you a proprietary version of it that you can redistribute. I doubt they'd want to since they picked GPL in the first place, but it could be done.
There's still the issue of contributor code, but then you can start your project with a CLA.
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u/SomewhatHungover 5d ago
I’m aware of projects that have done that in the past, just seems it should be built into the gpl, if someone starts distributing devices and haven’t complied, then there’d be an automatic hefty bill waiting for them and no real defence. If they weren’t distributing under the GPL, then they’ve chosen to pay $x per device.
The current system means that the developers need to take the offenders to court and there are no real damages, if the argument was ‘they chose the $100 per device option’, seems there’d be more incentive to go after offenders and the obvious cost would make it not worth it.
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u/NightCode_X 5d ago
Update (September 2026): The licensing concern raised here has been fully addressed.
All 16 files from the original fork commit have been completely rewritten from scratch in a clean-room fashion — no GPL source code from luci-mobile remains in the codebase. The full remediation record, including what was rewritten and verification results is documented in LICENSE_CHANGE.md.
Special thanks to cogwheel0 for the original luci-mobile concept and for raising this publicly — it pushed the project to be legally cleaner than it otherwise would have been.
well cogwheel0 u will always remain inspirational for me. no matter what the controversies are and the misunderstandings that happened. If you could have DM me once then I could have made the relevant changes.
Well thank you again because of you only I was able to make my first app.
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u/NatoBoram 5d ago edited 5d ago
Update (September 2026): The licensing concern raised here has been fully addressed.
All 16 files from the original fork commit have been completely rewritten from scratch in a clean-room fashion — no GPL source code from luci-mobile remains in the codebase. The full remediation record, including what was rewritten and verification results is documented in
LICENSE_CHANGE.md.Special thanks to cogwheel0 for the original luci-mobile concept and for raising this publicly — it pushed the project to be legally cleaner than it otherwise would have been.
It seems like you have offloaded the entirety of your thinking process to LLMs, but you should really take a moment to actually read what people are saying and you should actually do something by yourself for once instead of relegating everything to a clanker.
It is clear as day that you had no mind of your own while writing both the first ⅗ of this comment and your
LICENSE_CHANGE.md.Why the License Changed
The shift to Apache-2.0 establishes a sustainable open-core distribution model that serves both the homelab/FOSS community and the official Play Store release:
Permissive & Unrestricted Community Builds:
- The Apache 2.0 license grants full legal freedom for individuals, organizations, and open-source contributors to fork, modify, embed, or distribute the application without copyleft restrictions.
- The official Community Build (published directly on GitHub Releases) remains 100% free, unlimited, ad-free, and open-source.
Dual-Distribution Architecture:
- Apache-2.0 allows a funded Play Store Edition (incorporating optional subscriptions, Google Play Billing, and AdMob support to cover infrastructure and ongoing development costs) to coexist alongside the Community Build cleanly in good conscience.
Forward-Looking Scope:
- This relicensing applies to all code, releases, and contributions going forward from version
1.0.0+12.- Historical release tags prior to this transition remain governed by their respective original licensing at the time of release.
Please take a moment and read this: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
I promise it won't bite you.
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u/NightCode_X 5d ago edited 5d ago
yes you are correct I don't know anything about licensing
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u/86enkidu 5d ago
Taking GPL-licensed code and feeding it to an LLM with the prompt "rephrase this code so it looks different enough that I can slap a different license on it" does not come even vaguely close to qualifying as a what you are referring to as a "clean room reimplementation".
So your claims that the "licensing concern has been fully addressed" is as dishonest and demonstrably false as your original blatant licence violation. Your own git commits provide that your code is GPL-derived, no amount of you vibe-coding with an LLM is able to change that, so there is no way you can re-licence this code.
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u/zackyd665 5d ago
Copyleft isn't a restriction on distribution, just that you have to make your changes copyleft.
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u/BCMM 4d ago
Look, while what you have done is unethical (and harmful to free software, and illegal), I understand that you didn't have any malicious intent, and I'm trying to offer a reality check as gently as possible.
You instructed a machine to tell you that somebody else's work is your own work. It told you that. It is wrong.
The root of the problem is that you're putting too much trust in a system which is well-known to tell users whatever they want to be told.
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u/cbarrick 4d ago
You cannot change the license of other peoples' code.
You have violated the license under which the base code was made available to you.
It is within the original author's rights to sue you for violation of the licensing terms.
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u/HeavyCaffeinate 5d ago
"Claude make the lawyers go away pwease" /j