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shankar0123 da00ee0ca5 license: tighten BSL terms (Florida venue, full Pi Day Change Date, no contributions)
Rewrite of the BSL 1.1 LICENSE to fix lawyer-grade gaps and align
the parameters with the project's actual posture:

Licensor + copyright
- Licensor name: "Shankar Kambam" (correct legal name; was "Shankar
  Reddy" — same operator, different surname).
- © marker: "© 2026 Shankar Kambam" (was "(c)" placeholder).

Additional Use Grant — sharper Commercial Certificate Service test
- Replaces the old "running a cert service for non-affiliated third
  parties" wording with a principal-value test: a CCS is a product
  whose principal value to the third party is certctl's certificate
  management functionality (lifecycle, discovery, monitoring,
  alerting, renewal automation, deployment, revocation) AND the
  third party accesses or controls that functionality AND
  compensation flows for that access/control.
- Carve-out (a): explicitly permits running certctl in production
  to manage certs for products whose principal value is something
  ELSE (e.g. a banking app using certctl for its TLS certs).
- Carve-out (b): "third party" excludes employees, contractors
  acting on the licensee's behalf, and Affiliates (>50% common
  voting control). Closes the "internal IT department is a third
  party" attack on the wording.
- Carve-out (c): the CCS restriction applies regardless of whether
  certctl is hosted, managed, embedded, bundled, or integrated
  with another product — closes the embedded-OEM loophole.

Change Date — full per-version 4-year BSL period
- Was: March 14, 2126 (a fixed date 100+ years out, defeating the
  "earlier of <Change Date> or 4 years from first publication"
  semantics — the 4-year cap always won, no version got the full
  4-year window).
- Now: March 14, 2076 (Pi Day, ~50 years out). This is the longest
  acceptable horizon under the BSL spirit while ensuring every
  released version gets its full 4-year BSL period before flipping
  to Apache-2.0.

Contributions — no third-party contributions accepted
- Adds an explicit "Licensor does not accept third-party
  contributions" clause. Any code/docs submitted are at the
  submitter's sole risk, confer no rights, and are not incorporated.
  Mirrors the project's reality (no PR review process, single-owner
  development).

Patent non-assertion + defensive termination
- Adds a non-assertion covenant covering compliant uses, with
  termination of that covenant if the licensee initiates patent
  litigation against the Licensor or contributors. Standard BSL
  posture, was missing.

Termination + reinstatement
- 30-day cure window for first violation; second violation after
  reinstatement is permanent. Aligns with BSL norm.

Governing law + venue
- State of Florida, USA. Operator's residence; aligns dispute
  forum with the Licensor's actual jurisdiction.

Severability + survival
- Standard boilerplate added. Ensures the disclaimer-of-warranty,
  patent non-assertion (for pre-termination acts), and
  governing-law clauses survive any termination.

Stripped
- Dead "(certctl is not a registered trademark)" parenthetical —
  the trademark filing is a separate workstream, not licensing.

Contact for alternative arrangements: certctl@proton.me
(unchanged).
2026-05-02 17:12:50 +00:00

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Business Source License 1.1
Parameters
Licensor: Shankar Kambam
Licensed Work: certctl
The Licensed Work is © 2026 Shankar Kambam.
Additional Use Grant: You may make use of the Licensed Work, including in
production for your internal business operations and
for operations that provide products or services to
your own customers, provided that you may not offer
the Licensed Work as a Commercial Certificate Service.
A "Commercial Certificate Service" is a product or
service whose principal value to a third party is the
certificate management functionality of the Licensed
Work — including but not limited to lifecycle
management, discovery, monitoring, alerting, renewal
automation, deployment, and revocation — where the
third party accesses or controls that functionality
and compensation is received for that access or
control.
For the avoidance of doubt:
(a) you may run the Licensed Work in production to
manage certificates for products or services
that you offer to your customers, where the
principal value of those products or services is
something other than the Licensed Work's
certificate management functionality (for
example, you operate a banking application and
use the Licensed Work internally to manage TLS
certificates for that application);
(b) for the purposes of this Additional Use Grant,
"third party" excludes (i) your employees, (ii)
your contractors acting on your behalf, and (iii)
your Affiliates. "Affiliate" means any entity
that controls, is controlled by, or is under
common control with, you, where "control" means
ownership of more than fifty percent (50%) of
the voting interests of the entity;
(c) the restriction on offering a Commercial
Certificate Service applies regardless of whether
the Licensed Work is hosted, managed, embedded,
bundled, or integrated with another product or
service.
Change Date: March 14, 2076
Change License: Apache License, Version 2.0
For information about alternative licensing arrangements for the Licensed Work,
please contact: certctl@proton.me
Notice
Business Source License 1.1
Terms
The Licensor hereby grants you the right to copy, modify, create derivative
works, redistribute, and make non-production use of the Licensed Work. The
Licensor may make an Additional Use Grant, above, permitting limited production
use.
Effective on the Change Date, or the fourth anniversary of the first publicly
available distribution of a specific version of the Licensed Work under this
License, whichever comes first, the Licensor hereby grants you rights under
the terms of the Change License, and the rights granted in the paragraph
above terminate.
If your use of the Licensed Work does not comply with the requirements
currently in effect as described in this License, you must purchase a
commercial license from the Licensor, its affiliated entities, or authorized
resellers, or you must refrain from using the Licensed Work.
All copies of the original and modified Licensed Work, and derivative works
of the Licensed Work, are subject to this License. This License applies
separately for each version of the Licensed Work and the Change Date may vary
for each version of the Licensed Work released by Licensor.
You must conspicuously display this License on each original or modified copy
of the Licensed Work. If you receive the Licensed Work in original or
modified form from a third party, the terms and conditions set forth in this
License apply to your use of that work.
Patent non-assertion. During the term of this License, Licensor covenants
not to assert any patent claim that Licensor controls against any person
whose use of the Licensed Work complies with this License, with respect to
the Licensed Work as distributed by Licensor. This covenant terminates with
respect to any person who initiates a patent infringement action against
the Licensor or against any contributor to the Licensed Work.
Termination and reinstatement. Any use of the Licensed Work in violation of
this License will automatically terminate your rights under this License
for the current and all other versions of the Licensed Work. Your rights
are reinstated automatically if you cease the violation and provide written
notice to the Licensor at the contact address above within thirty (30) days
of becoming aware of the violation. If you violate this License a second
time after such reinstatement, your rights are not subject to further
reinstatement.
Contributions. The Licensor does not accept third-party contributions to
the Licensed Work. Any code, documentation, or other material submitted to
the Licensor or to any repository hosting the Licensed Work is provided at
the submitter's sole risk, confers no rights or obligations on the
Licensor, and is not incorporated into the Licensed Work.
This License does not grant you any right in any trademark or logo of the
Licensor or its Affiliates.
Governing law and venue. This License shall be governed by and construed in
accordance with the laws of the State of Florida, USA, without giving
effect to any choice or conflict of law provision or rule. Any dispute
arising from or relating to this License shall be brought exclusively in
the state or federal courts located in the State of Florida, and the
parties consent to the personal jurisdiction of such courts.
Severability. If any provision of this License is held to be invalid,
illegal, or unenforceable in any jurisdiction, that holding does not
affect the validity, legality, or enforceability of any other provision of
this License, which remains in full force and effect.
Survival. The disclaimers of warranty, the patent non-assertion provisions
(with respect to acts occurring before termination), the governing-law and
venue provisions, and this survival provision survive any termination of
this License.
TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE LICENSED WORK IS PROVIDED ON
AN "AS IS" BASIS. LICENSOR HEREBY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING (WITHOUT LIMITATION) WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND
TITLE.