Licence¶
The repository: AGPL-3.0-only¶
astar's own code is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License,
version 3.0 only — the engine crates, astar-server, the macOS app, the Iced
client, the bindings, and these docs. Three vendored components keep their own
terms; they are listed under Third-party components
below.
Copyright © 2026 Rob Ludwick.
The full text is in LICENSE at the root of the repository. Every first-party
.rs, .swift, .sh and .py file carries an SPDX header, and
ci/guard-spdx-headers.sh fails the build if one goes missing:
Prose — these docs, the READMEs — is covered by the root LICENSE rather than
by per-file headers.
What AGPL-3.0 means in practice
The AGPL is the GPL plus a network clause. If you modify astar and let other people use it over a network — a hosted node, a web front-end, a service — those users are entitled to the corresponding source of your modified version, not just the people you hand a binary to.
Running an unmodified astar for yourself, or on your own node, carries no obligation at all.
This is a summary, not legal advice. Read the licence.
Third-party components¶
Three paths in the repository, and two upstream dependencies, are not
AGPL-3.0. This list matches the table in the repository's README.md; if the
two ever disagree, the licence files shipped alongside the code win.
| Path or crate | Component | Licence |
|---|---|---|
vendor/ambe-thumbdv |
ThumbDV / DV3000 AMBE driver | MIT OR Apache-2.0 |
apps/gui/assets/fonts |
The Inter typeface, bundled with the Iced client | SIL Open Font License 1.1 (LICENSE-Inter.txt) |
harness/asterisk_parity/c_iaxclient/vendored/libiax2 |
The historical C libiax2, used only as a parity reference by the test harness — never linked into a shipped binary | GPL v2 (COPYING) / LGPL v2 (COPYING.LIB) |
codec2 crate / system libcodec2 |
Codec 2 — the M17 voice codec. Opt-in features only | LGPL-2.1-only AND MIT / LGPL-2.1 |
nnnoiseless crate |
RNNoise — mic noise reduction, compiled into every build | BSD-3-Clause |
nnnoiseless (RNNoise)¶
Mic noise reduction is nnnoiseless, a pure-Rust port of Xiph's RNNoise. It is
an ordinary crates.io dependency rather than vendored source, and the ~87 KB
model is a const array inside the crate — there is no runtime file to locate,
sign or bundle on any platform.
BSD-3-Clause is GPL-compatible, so a shipped astar binary is distributable under
the AGPL. The licence asks for attribution in return, and five copyright
lines ship together: the Rust port, the Mozilla-era RNNoise, Jean-Marc Valin's
original work, the Xiph.Org Foundation — whom the no-endorsement clause names
specifically — and Mark Borgerding's KISS FFT. All five, and the full licence
text, are reproduced in LICENSE-EXCEPTIONS.md §3.
vendor/ambe-thumbdv¶
vendor/ambe-thumbdv is the ThumbDV / DV3000 AMBE vocoder driver — the D-Star
hardware path. It is dual-licensed MIT OR Apache-2.0 and keeps those terms.
It lives under vendor/ rather than crates/ precisely so the licence boundary
is visible in the directory tree, and its own Cargo.toml states its licence
explicitly rather than inheriting the workspace's. Its notices ship with it:
vendor/ambe-thumbdv/LICENSE-MITvendor/ambe-thumbdv/LICENSE-APACHEvendor/ambe-thumbdv/VENDORED.md— provenance: upstream repository, the exact revision vendored, and why.
Copyright for that crate is also Rob Ludwick's; it is permissively licensed on purpose, so it can be reused outside an AGPL project.
apps/gui/assets/fonts¶
The Iced client embeds the Inter typeface, which is licensed under the SIL
Open Font License 1.1. The licence text ships with the fonts, in
apps/gui/assets/fonts/LICENSE-Inter.txt.
harness/asterisk_parity/c_iaxclient/vendored/libiax2¶
A snapshot of the historical C libiax2, kept so the test harness can compare
astar's framing against the original implementation. It is GPL v2 / LGPL v2
(COPYING and COPYING.LIB in that directory) and is never linked into any
shipped astar binary — it exists for parity testing only.
Third-party dependencies¶
astar builds on a large tree of Rust crates under their own (mostly MIT/Apache)
terms. cargo metadata is the authoritative list for any given checkout.
No warranty¶
As stated in the licence: this software comes with absolutely no warranty. It keys radio transmitters. You are the licensed operator, and the responsibility for what your station emits is yours.