Legal

Skans Software License Agreement

Last updated: 2 August 2026

This is the agreement you accept when you install Skans. It is the same text the installer displays and the same text that ships as LICENSE.md in the product.

Skans is proprietary software. It is NOT open-source software. It is offered in five editions under this Agreement:

Community Edition — free to use, subject to the terms below.
Essential, Professional, Business and Enterprise Editions (each a "Paid Edition") — available only under a separate, signed commercial subscription agreement (the "Commercial Agreement").

The editions differ in three ways, and — apart from the single narrow exception stated in the next paragraph — not in which product capabilities are available: the number of devices You may place under management ("Managed Device Allowance"), which classes of Licensor-published content You may obtain ("Content Entitlements"), and the level of support provided.

The Community Edition includes every product capability that protects or manages Your enclave. No security control, no monitoring, no patching, backup, access control, vulnerability or compliance capability is withheld from any edition, and none ever will be: a security product that is less capable when unpaid is less safe for the customers least able to compensate for it. The sole exception is presentation, and it is not a security control — placing Your own logo on the email notifications the Software sends ("Notification Branding") is available in the Enterprise Edition. Applying Your own name, logo and colours to the console itself remains available in every edition.

By downloading, installing, or using the Software you agree to this Agreement. If you do not agree, do not use the Software.

1. Definitions

"Software" — the Skans appliance software in any form (source code, binaries, container images, installers, configuration, and documentation) and any updates provided under this Agreement.
"Licensor" — La Costa Services, LLC.
"You" / "Your" — the individual or entity exercising rights under this Agreement, and any affiliate under common control.
"Community Edition" — the Software operated within the Community Managed Device Allowance and Content Entitlements the Licensor designates as free (see https://skanslabs.com/pricing).
"Paid Edition" — the Software operated under a Commercial Agreement, at the Managed Device Allowance and Content Entitlements that agreement specifies.
"Managed Device" — a device You have placed under management: one You onboarded, or one to which the Software issued a credential at Your direction. A device the Software merely observed on a network — for example a neighbour reported by a switch, or a device a third-party controller reports having adopted — is not a Managed Device.
"Managed Device Allowance" — the maximum number of Managed Devices for Your edition, as published in https://skanslabs.com/pricing or as Your Commercial Agreement specifies.
"Content Entitlements" — the classes of Licensor-published content (for example driver packs, threat and advisory feeds, detection content, antivirus definitions, OS package mirrors, compliance evidence packs) Your edition may obtain from the Licensor's update service.
"Competing Product or Service" — any product or service made available to third parties, for a fee or other consideration, whose value derives substantially from the Software's functionality and that substitutes for the Software or for any product or service the Licensor offers using the Software.

2. License grant — Community Edition

Subject to Your compliance with this Agreement, the Licensor grants You a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to install, run, and use the Community Edition:

(a) for Your own internal business or personal purposes — including commercial and production use — with no per-device fee, on any number of sites, up to the Community Managed Device Allowance per appliance stated in https://skanslabs.com/pricing; and
(b) to deploy, configure, and operate the unmodified Community Edition on behalf of a third party (for example, as a systems integrator or managed-service provider), provided Section 4 (Restrictions) is honored.

2A. Prior installations — preserved

If a specific installation of the Community Edition was first placed into operation on or before 2026-07-29, that installation may continue to operate with no Managed Device Allowance, notwithstanding any allowance stated elsewhere or introduced after that date. The Licensor introduced the allowance after that date and does not apply it retroactively.

(a) It attaches to the installation, not to You. This preservation attaches to that installation itself and not to You, Your organisation, Your other sites, or any other installation.
(b) It does not transfer to a successor installation. It does not carry to a replacement appliance, a re-image, a restore from backup or snapshot, a clone, or a virtual-machine template. Where the original installation is retired and a single replacement takes over from it, the replacement is a new installation subject to the Managed Device Allowance then in force, and Section 3 applies to it in the ordinary way. Ordinary succession of this kind is not a breach of this Agreement.
(c) Multiplication is. Operating the original installation and a claimed successor at the same time, re-imaging or re-installing in order to reset a device count, cloning an installation to create additional instances relying on this Section, or knowingly giving false evidence under paragraph (d), is deliberately circumventing the Managed Device Allowance and is prohibited under Section 4(c).
(d) It is Yours to substantiate. The Licensor may ask for reasonable evidence that a particular installation qualifies — an enrolment or licence record, support correspondence, an invoice, or another contemporaneous record — and may decline to honour this Section for an installation where such evidence is not reasonably available.

3. Paid Editions

A Paid Edition's Managed Device Allowance and Content Entitlements are licensed only under a current Commercial Agreement. Obtaining or using content outside Your Content Entitlements, or deliberately circumventing the Managed Device Allowance, is outside the grant in Section 2 and is prohibited.

Exceeding Your Managed Device Allowance does not terminate this Agreement and does not cause the Software to stop protecting devices already under management; the Software declines to place further devices under management and reports the condition.

4. Restrictions

You may not:

(a) make the Software available to third parties as a Competing Product or Service (including a hosted or managed service that gives third parties access to a substantial set of the Software's features as a substitute for the Software);
(b) remove, alter, or obscure any copyright, licensing, trademark, "powered by," or other notice in the Software;
(c) circumvent, disable, or defeat any licence, edition, entitlement, or device-allowance mechanism, or obtain content outside Your Content Entitlements, or operate above Your Managed Device Allowance, without a Commercial Agreement;
(d) redistribute, resell, rent, lease, or sublicense the Software except as expressly permitted in Section 2(b);
(e) reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law; or
(f) use the Software in violation of applicable law.

Third-party open-source components included in the Software remain governed by their own licenses; nothing here restricts rights You have under those licenses.

5. Ownership

The Software is licensed, not sold. The Licensor retains all right, title, and interest in and to the Software, including all intellectual-property rights. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. No trademark rights are granted except as required to keep the notices in Section 4(b).

6. Termination

This Agreement terminates automatically on Your breach. If the breach is curable, the Agreement is reinstated retroactively if You cure within thirty (30) days of becoming aware of it. Repeated breach permits permanent termination. On termination You must stop using and destroy Your copies of the Software.

7. Your evaluation, and what You are not relying on

The Community Edition is free and has every product capability, so You are able to evaluate the Software fully, at no cost, before relying on it. You are responsible for determining whether the Software is suitable for Your purpose and environment, and for testing it before production use.

You acknowledge that You are not relying on any statement, representation or promise about the Software that is not written in this Agreement. That includes anything said in marketing material, on the Licensor's websites, in documentation, in a demonstration, or by any employee, agent, reseller or integrator, and it includes in particular any statement about security architecture, where data is stored or sent, what the Software will detect, and what it contributes to a compliance or certification objective. The Licensor is not bound by such statements. Only this Agreement, and for a Paid Edition a signed Commercial Agreement, states what the Licensor undertakes.

8. Excluded uses — safety and other high-risk applications

The Software monitors, detects, alerts and produces records. It is not a safety device, not a safety control, not an interlock, and not a substitute for one.

You must not use the Software, and it is not licensed for use, as the means of preventing personal injury, death, or catastrophic environmental or physical loss, nor in any system where a failure or delay of the Software could reasonably be expected to cause any of those. Where the Software is deployed alongside equipment that performs or affects such functions — including access control, life-safety, industrial control and building-automation systems — You remain responsible for independent safety measures that do not depend on the Software, and the Licensor has no liability arising from that equipment.

9. Disclaimer of warranty

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE (EXCEPT AS REQUIRED BY LAW), NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING OR TRADE USAGE.

Without limiting that, the Licensor does not warrant, and expressly disclaims any undertaking, that:

(a) the Software will be uninterrupted, timely, error-free, or that defects will be corrected;
(b) the Software will prevent, detect, identify, or alert on any particular attack, intrusion, malware, misconfiguration, credential compromise, insider action, or other security event, or will do so within any period. Detection depends on what the monitored device reports, and devices differ in what they report and whether they report at all;
(c) the Software, or any evidence, report, crosswalk, score or export it produces, will satisfy any auditor, assessor, certification body or regulator, or will result in any certification, accreditation, attestation or finding of compliance. Such records are supporting technical evidence only; the organisational, personnel and physical controls, and the assessment itself, remain Yours; or
(d) the Software will be free of vulnerabilities, or that any update, content or package delivered through it is free of defects or malicious code.

No indemnity, and no obligation to defend. The Licensor does not indemnify You against, and has no obligation to defend You from, any claim by a third party — including a claim that the Software or Your use of it infringes or misappropriates a patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret or other right. If such a claim is made against You, it is Yours to handle, at Your own cost. The Licensor may choose to assist, and may at its sole discretion modify the Software, obtain rights, or offer a refund under Section 10, but it is not obliged to do any of those and choosing to do so once creates no obligation to do so again.

The Software is supplied at Your own risk, and the diligence is Yours. The Community Edition is free and has every product capability precisely so that You can evaluate the Software fully, at no cost, before You rely on it, and the components it includes are listed publicly (see Section 16) so You can assess their licences yourself. Be aware, however, that no diligence available to You can establish whether some third party may one day assert a claim against the Software; that uncertainty is inherent in any closed-source product, and allocating it to You is part of why the Software is priced as it is and offered free at the Community Edition.

10. Sole and exclusive remedy

Where the Licensor is found liable notwithstanding Sections 7 to 9, the Licensor's entire liability and Your sole and exclusive remedy is, at the Licensor's option, (i) repair or replacement of the affected portion of the Software, or (ii) the greater of (x) the fees You paid for the affected site for the twelve (12) months preceding the claim, or (y) one hundred US dollars ($100). For the Community Edition, and for any edition supplied without charge, no fee was paid, so this remedy is the $100 floor — a nominal amount, stated so that the remedy is never zero and never illusory, and not a measure of the value of the Software, of Your fees, or of any loss You may have suffered. This remedy applies even if it is found to fail of its essential purpose, and it is an aggregate ceiling rather than a per-claim one: the Licensor's total liability to You for the affected site, across all claims arising in any twelve (12) month period, will not exceed it.

11. Limitation of liability

This Section is drafted as separate and independently enforceable limitations. If any one of them is held unenforceable in whole or in part, the others remain in full force, and the next applies in its place.

(a) TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE LICENSOR WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY OF ANY KIND ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THIS AGREEMENT OR THE SOFTWARE, ON ANY THEORY OF CONTRACT, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY, STATUTE OR OTHERWISE.
(b) IF (a) IS UNENFORCEABLE, THE LICENSOR WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST REVENUE, LOST GOODWILL, LOST, CORRUPTED OR UNRECOVERABLE DATA, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, COST OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES, OR COSTS OF INVESTIGATION, REMEDIATION OR NOTIFICATION FOLLOWING A SECURITY INCIDENT, HOWEVER CAUSED AND EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY.
(c) IF (b) IS UNENFORCEABLE, THE LICENSOR'S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT STATED IN SECTION 10.

What these limitations never cover. Nothing in paragraph (a), (b) or (c) above — read individually or in any combination — excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, wilful injury, gross negligence, wilful misconduct, or violation of law (see California Civil Code section 1668), nor any right or remedy that applicable law prohibits from being waived by contract, including under the California Consumer Privacy Act. This carve-out is stated once here rather than repeated in each paragraph, and it qualifies every rung of the ladder equally; it is not confined to whichever rung a court ends up applying. Stating it does not concede that any of those things has occurred.

12. Causes the Licensor is not responsible for

The Licensor has no liability for any loss arising from:

(a) use of the Software in breach of this Agreement, or outside its documentation;
(b) Your configuration, Your specifications, or data or materials You supplied;
(c) the negligence, wilful act or omission of You, Your personnel, or a contractor, integrator or service provider acting for You;
(d) combination or interoperation with products, equipment, services or infrastructure the Licensor has not designated as compatible;
(e) modification, alteration or repair of the Software by anyone other than the Licensor;
(f) operation during any period not covered by a current licence or Commercial Agreement, or above Your Managed Device Allowance;
(g) abnormal operating conditions, accident, abuse or misapplication; or
(h) failure to apply an update, fix or content the Licensor has made available.

13. Your indemnity

You will defend, indemnify and hold the Licensor harmless from any third-party claim, and from the resulting liabilities, damages, costs and reasonable legal fees, arising from:

(i) Your use of the Software in breach of this Agreement or in violation of law;
(ii) a third-party claim relating to a device, system or premises You manage with the Software, arising from Your operation of it; or
(iii) Your continued use of a connected device that the Software has reported to You as presenting a security risk it rates High or Critical, after that report was available to You.

This indemnity does not apply to any claim to the extent it arises from the Licensor's own fraud, gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or from anything Section 11 states cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. You are not being asked to carry the Licensor's own wrongdoing, and this Section does not do indirectly what Section 11 says cannot be done directly.

How it works. The Licensor will give You reasonably prompt written notice of a claim (a delay excuses You only so far as it actually prejudices Your defence), may elect to control its own defence, and will not settle a claim in a way that imposes an obligation on You without Your consent, which You will not unreasonably withhold. You will cooperate reasonably at Your expense.

14. Not open source

The Software is proprietary. This Agreement does not grant open-source rights, and the Software is not "open source" as defined by the Open Source Initiative. The Community Edition grant is limited to the terms of this Agreement.

15. General

This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. The exclusive venue for any dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement is the state and federal courts located in Riverside County, California, and each party consents to personal jurisdiction there. If any provision is unenforceable, that provision is deleted and the remainder stays in full effect.

Legal costs. Each party bears its own legal fees and costs, whatever the outcome, except that a court may award fees to either party against the other for a claim or defence it finds was brought in bad faith or purely for delay.

This Agreement is the entire agreement between You and the Licensor about the Software, and it replaces any earlier or contemporaneous understanding about it.

How a signed agreement interacts with this one. A Commercial Agreement, order form or other document signed by both You and the Licensor, and referring to this Agreement or the Software, may amend this Agreement as follows:

(a) it may set or vary commercial terms — price, term, Managed Device Allowance, Content Entitlements, support — freely, and this Agreement yields to it on those;
(b) it may amend Sections 7 to 14 (Your evaluation, excluded uses, warranty, remedy, limitation of liability, excluded causes, Your indemnity, and Section 14) only by expressly identifying, by section number, each provision it amends; and
(c) it may amend any other provision of this Agreement only by expressly identifying, by section number, the provision it amends.

A general entire-agreement, integration or merger clause in another document does not by itself amend anything in this Agreement. No course of dealing, and no statement by any employee, agent, reseller or integrator, amends it either. An agreement between the Licensor and an integrator, reseller or service provider does not amend this Agreement as it applies to You, and does not make the Licensor a party to any agreement between You and them.

Sections 5 and 7 to 14 survive termination.

16. Documents this Agreement refers to

This Agreement, published: https://skanslabs.com/license
Editions, Managed Device Allowances and Content Entitlements: https://skanslabs.com/pricing
Third-party components included in the Software, and their licences: https://skanslabs.com/third-party

For licensing and commercial inquiries: [email protected]

Third-party components

Skans includes third-party components that remain governed by their own licences. They are listed on the third-party components page.