legal-and-trademarks

name	legal-and-trademarks
description	Legal compliance, license management, trademark guidelines, and distribution requirements for the Onde Inference project and its SDKs.

Legal & Trademarks — Onde Inference

Reference for AI agents and human contributors on all legal, licensing, trademark, and distribution compliance topics for the onde crate, onde-swift, and all downstream SDKs.

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License

Onde is dual-licensed under MIT and Apache 2.0, at the user's option. This mirrors the licensing model used by the Rust language itself.

SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT OR Apache-2.0

Why dual license?

Concern	MIT alone	MIT OR Apache-2.0
Patent grant	❌ None	✅ Apache 2.0 includes irrevocable patent grant
Enterprise adoption	⚠️ Legal teams may ask questions	✅ Widely understood and accepted
Rust ecosystem compatibility	✅	✅
Contributor protection	❌	✅ Patent termination clause deters trolling
Simplicity	✅	✅ User just picks one

License files

File	Contents
LICENSE-MIT	MIT License, copyright Onde Inference (Splitfire AB)
LICENSE-APACHE	Apache License 2.0

Never use a single LICENSE file for dual-licensed projects. Always maintain both files separately.

Cargo.toml declaration

license = "MIT OR Apache-2.0"

Use OR (uppercase, SPDX standard), not AND or /. AND would mean the user must comply with both simultaneously — that is a different and more restrictive claim.

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Copyright

The canonical copyright notice for all Onde Inference files is:

Copyright (c) 2026 Onde Inference (Splitfire AB)

• Onde Inference — the product/brand name
• Splitfire AB — the Swedish legal entity (org. nr. on file)
• Use the year of first publication; do not update the year annually in LICENSE files

This notice must appear in:

• LICENSE-MIT
• LICENSE-APACHE (NOTICE file section)
• Any generated SDK packages distributed to registries (crates.io, pub.dev, npm, PyPI)

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Dependency Licenses

Direct dependencies — audit table

Crate	License	Notes
mistral.rs (Eric Buehler)	MIT	Must preserve Copyright (c) 2024 Eric Buehler
uniffi	MPL-2.0	File-level copyleft; compatible with MIT/Apache 2.0 for binary distribution
tokio	MIT	—
serde	MIT OR Apache-2.0	—
anyhow / thiserror	MIT OR Apache-2.0	—
hf-hub	Apache-2.0	—
log	MIT OR Apache-2.0	—

MPL-2.0 (uniffi) — what it means in practice

Mozilla Public License 2.0 is file-level copyleft:

• You may distribute binaries combining MPL code with MIT/Apache code without restriction.
• If you modify MPL-licensed source files, you must make those modifications available.
• As a consumer of uniffi (not modifying its internals), no disclosure obligation applies.

GPL — hard blocker

Never introduce a GPL-licensed dependency (v2-only in particular). GPL v2 is incompatible with Apache 2.0 and would contaminate the entire binary.

Before adding any new dependency, verify its license with:

cargo license --all-features

Acceptable licenses for new dependencies: MIT, Apache-2.0, MIT OR Apache-2.0, ISC, BSD-2-Clause, BSD-3-Clause, MPL-2.0, Unicode-3.0, Zlib.

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Model Licenses

This is the most critical compliance area for downstream users.

Onde downloads AI models from HuggingFace at runtime. These models carry their own licenses, entirely separate from Onde's MIT OR Apache-2.0 license. Any application that ships with or downloads these models must comply with the model's license.

Current model license table

Model	HuggingFace Repo	License	Commercial use
Qwen 2.5 1.5B Instruct	Qwen/Qwen2.5-1.5B-Instruct	Qwen Community License	✅ Allowed with conditions
Qwen 2.5 3B Instruct	Qwen/Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct	Qwen Community License	✅ Allowed with conditions
Qwen 2.5 Coder 1.5B	Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-1.5B-Instruct	Qwen Community License	✅ Allowed with conditions
Qwen 2.5 Coder 3B	Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-3B-Instruct	Qwen Community License	✅ Allowed with conditions
Qwen 2.5 Coder 7B	Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-7B-Instruct	Qwen Community License	✅ Allowed with conditions

Key Qwen Community License restrictions

1. No training competing models — you may not use outputs or weights to train a model that competes with Qwen/Alibaba offerings.
2. Attribution required — downstream products must acknowledge the use of Qwen models.
3. No misrepresentation — you may not claim the model is your own original work.
4. Threshold clause — organisations with >100 million monthly active users must obtain a separate commercial licence from Alibaba Cloud.

Disclosure obligation

Onde's README and any SDK README must contain a ## Model Licenses section that:

• Lists every bundled or downloadable model
• Links to the model's license on HuggingFace
• States that the model license is independent of Onde's own license

When a new model is added to src/inference/models.rs, the model license table in the README must be updated in the same commit.

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Trademark Guidelines

Onde Inference brand

"Onde Inference" and the Onde logo (assets/onde-inference-logo.svg) are trademarks of Splitfire AB.

MIT and Apache 2.0 grant code rights only — neither license grants trademark rights. This is intentional and protective.

Permitted uses

• Referring to the project by name: "built with Onde Inference", "powered by Onde"
• Linking to the official website or repository
• Stating compatibility: "compatible with Onde Inference 0.x"
• Press, editorial, and factual references

Prohibited uses

• Using "Onde Inference" or the logo as the name of a fork, competing product, or derived SDK
• Implying official endorsement or affiliation without written permission from Splitfire AB
• Using the logo in a way that could cause confusion about the origin of a product

Forks

A fork of onde may use the code freely under MIT OR Apache-2.0 but must not:

• Use the "Onde Inference" name as its product name
• Use the Onde logo
• Claim to be the official Onde Inference project

This is standard open-source brand protection and is consistent with how the Apache Software Foundation, Mozilla, and Rust Foundation handle their trademarks.

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mistral.rs Fork — Attribution Requirements

Onde depends on a personal fork of mistral.rs by Eric Buehler:

mistralrs = { git = "https://github.com/setoelkahfi/mistral.rs",
              branch = "fix/all-platform-fixes", ... }

Obligations

1. Preserve the upstream LICENSE — mistral.rs/LICENSE must remain intact and contain Copyright (c) 2024 Eric Buehler. Never alter it.
2. Pin to a commit SHA, not a branch — branches can be force-pushed or deleted. For any production release, the dependency must be pinned:

   mistralrs = { git = "https://github.com/setoelkahfi/mistral.rs", rev = "<commit-sha>" }
   

3. Upstream-first policy — fixes that are not Onde-specific should be submitted as PRs to EricLBuehler/mistral.rs. Maintaining a long-lived divergent fork creates legal ambiguity about authorship of patches.
4. NOTICE file — if Onde ever produces an Apache 2.0 binary distribution (e.g., via PyPI), a NOTICE file must include: "This product includes software developed by Eric Buehler (mistral.rs)."

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Distribution Registry Compliance

crates.io

• license = "MIT OR Apache-2.0" in Cargo.toml ✅
• Both LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE must be present in the repo root
• readme = "README.md" must point to a file that contains the ## Model Licenses section

pub.dev (Flutter/Dart)

• pubspec.yaml must declare license: MIT OR Apache-2.0
• The ## Model Licenses section must be present in the published README
• pub.dev displays the license on the package page — verify after each publish

Swift Package Manager / onde-swift

• onde-swift/README.md license section must state MIT OR Apache-2.0
• The XCFramework binary is a compiled artifact — it carries Onde's license, mistral.rs attribution, and the model license notice
• The GitHub Release notes for every onde-swift release must include a ## Licenses section

Apple App Store

• Apple's review guidelines do not restrict MIT/Apache 2.0 licensed code
• The Qwen model license does not conflict with App Store distribution
• Ensure the app's Privacy Policy states that inference runs entirely on-device and no user data is transmitted (this is a functional claim Onde enables, not a license issue, but legal teams will ask)

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Checklist — Adding a New Model

When adding a new model to src/inference/models.rs:

• Verify the model's license on HuggingFace before adding
• Check for the >100M MAU commercial threshold clause
• Add the model to the ## Model Licenses table in onde/README.md
• Add the model to the ## Model Licenses table in onde-swift/README.md
• Add the model to the model license table in this SKILL.md
• If the model license is more restrictive than Qwen Community License, escalate before shipping

Checklist — Adding a New Dependency

• Run cargo license --all-features and confirm no GPL appears
• If MPL-2.0: confirm you are not modifying the MPL files
• If Apache-2.0 only (not MIT): compatible, no action needed
• If custom/proprietary license: stop and escalate to Splitfire AB legal

Checklist — New SDK Release

• Both LICENSE-MIT and LICENSE-APACHE are present
• Cargo.toml / pubspec.yaml / package.json declare MIT OR Apache-2.0
• README contains ## Model Licenses section
• Copyright year and entity (Onde Inference (Splitfire AB)) is correct
• mistral.rs fork dependency is pinned to a commit SHA
• mistral.rs LICENSE (Eric Buehler) is intact and unmodified

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Quick Reference

Question	Answer
What license is Onde?	MIT OR Apache-2.0 (user's choice)
Who holds the copyright?	Onde Inference (Splitfire AB)
Can someone fork Onde and sell it?	Yes, under MIT or Apache 2.0, but they cannot use the "Onde Inference" name or logo
Are Qwen models MIT?	No — Qwen Community License. Disclose to users.
Can enterprises use Onde commercially?	Yes. Apache 2.0 + Qwen Community License both permit commercial use.
Does the patent grant apply?	Yes, under Apache 2.0. Choose Apache 2.0 if patent protection matters to you.
Who is Eric Buehler?	Author of mistral.rs. His MIT copyright must be preserved in our fork.