Terms of Service

Version: v1.0
Effective Date: 2026-11-04

This Agreement sets out the rights and obligations between you and 仁怀市缃帙软件开发工作室 in relation to use of the Fountrace software. Downloading, installing or using the software indicates that you have read and agreed to this Agreement.

1. Definitions

“Software”: the commercial components of the Fountrace search engine, including the closed-source components that deliver the features you purchased, associated documentation and accompanying programs.
“Open-Source Core”: the source code in the Fountrace open-source repository, released under the dual MIT OR Apache-2.0 licence and not subject to the commercial terms of this Agreement.
“Licensee”: an individual or organisation that has obtained a valid licence key.
“Community Edition”: the set of features usable without a licence, free of charge.
“Commercial Licence”: the scope of authorisation permitting the paid features of the Software to be deployed and used for business purposes in an organisational environment (a company, government body, public institution, social organisation or similar). Personal study, personal creative work, and self-use that provides no service to third parties do not constitute commercial use and require no Commercial Licence.
“Perpetual Licence”: a form of authorisation paid for once and usable without time limit for as long as the Software continues to be operated; “perpetual” refers to the lifecycle of the Software, not to the lifespan of the purchaser.
“Device”: a computing device uniquely identified by its Hardware ID (hardware fingerprint).
“Rolling Window”: the device management mechanism (Rolling-N) whereby activating a new device when the allowance is full automatically releases the least recently used device; see Section 6.

2. Editions and Scope of Licence

Community Edition (free): includes keyword search, regular expression and wildcard search, and basic filtering, among other capabilities; the exact capability list is as published within the product. Search result counts are unlimited, no activation is required, and no closed-source component is included.
Professional Edition: on top of the Community Edition, unlocks the family of retrieval capabilities provided by closed-source components, which currently comprises full-text content search (local full-text indexing of formats such as PDF, Word, Excel and plain text), optical character recognition (OCR) of scanned documents and images. The scope of capabilities covered by this licence is the capability list published within the product at the time of your purchase. The Professional Edition is offered both as an annual subscription and as a perpetual licence, and is licensed for personal, non-commercial use; using it for business purposes in an organisational environment requires the Flagship Edition.
Flagship Edition: functionally identical to the Professional Edition. The differences are solely that it carries a Commercial Licence and a higher device allowance. It is offered only as a perpetual licence, with no annual subscription. It can be purchased directly and self-service within the product or on the official website, with no separate negotiation or sales contact required.

The device limit is the number actually issued in the licence. Purchase pages publish the current device limit for each edition before an order is placed. The device allowance operates as a rolling window mechanism (see Section 6). The exact division of features is as published within the product and as reflected in the licence type actually issued; the licence type is determined by the content issued inside the key.

3. Rights Granted

Subject to compliance with this Agreement, the Licensee is entitled to:

Use: use the Software within the authorised scope.
Configure: adjust configuration and usage for internal purposes (excluding modification of the binary files).

4. Restrictions and Prohibited Conduct

The Licensee shall not:

Reverse engineer: decompile, disassemble or otherwise reverse engineer the Software.
Redistribute: distribute the Software to any third party that has not obtained a licence.
Rent or lease: provide the Software to third parties as a service (SaaS).
Remove protections: remove, circumvent or defeat any anti-piracy or technological protection mechanism.
Disclose source code: publish the source code of closed-source modules in any form.
Exceed the authorised scope: a holder of a Professional Edition licence alone shall not deploy or use the paid features of the Software for business purposes in an organisational environment (that scenario requires the Commercial Licence of the Flagship Edition).
Exceed the device allowance: no edition may be used on more devices than the allowance issued in the licence.

5. Trial Period

Segmented trials: the Professional Edition and the Flagship Edition each have an independent trial allowance, and neither consumes the other. You may trial the Professional Edition first and then separately start a Flagship Edition trial on that basis; the two segments together may reach a maximum of 30 days.
The length of each segment is as published within the product (currently 15 days per edition). When activating online, the trial expiry is the expiry issued by the server.
Flagship Edition trial prerequisite: you must already hold a Professional Edition authorisation or have a Professional Edition trial record; Community Edition users cannot start a Flagship Edition trial directly.
Trial licences are granted for evaluation purposes only. After the trial ends you must purchase a full licence to continue using the corresponding features.
The trial starts when you first invoke a paid feature of that edition, not upon installation.
Device fingerprint binding: the trial licence is bound to the device hardware fingerprint and may not be transferred across devices.
Trial duration is governed by server records: extending or re-obtaining a trial by altering the system time, reinstalling repeatedly or similar means constitutes a breach of this Agreement. Once a device regains network connectivity, the local trial state is reconciled against server records.

6. Device Management

Each licence key may be simultaneously activated on a limited number of devices (device allowance as published on the purchase page). Devices are uniquely identified by hardware fingerprint, derived from local hardware information through irreversible hashing; raw hardware information never leaves your device.

Hardware change tolerance: a limited degree of device-identity drift within reasonable bounds is accepted (for example reinstalling the operating system or replacing part of the hardware) without requiring reactivation; changes beyond that bound require reactivation. The exact tolerance policy is as indicated within the product.
Rolling window mechanism: when the allowance is full and you activate on a new device, the system automatically releases the least recently used device to free a slot, with no need for you to unbind it first. The authorisation on the released device ceases immediately; that device must be reactivated to continue using paid features.
Activation never fails: under the rolling window mechanism, a new device activation request always succeeds.
Eviction notification: the activation UI discloses the identifier of the released device; the released device receives a downgrade notice at its next online re-check; Licensor notifies the licence holder of device changes via email.
Online re-check: paid authorisation must periodically connect to our servers to complete an online re-check. After activation the server issues a re-check deadline (grace period, 7 days by default); once the deadline passes while the device is offline, paid features are temporarily downgraded to the Community Edition and are restored automatically upon a successful online re-check. Enterprise authorisations activated offline may be exempt from this re-check by agreement.
No circumvention: you shall not circumvent device limits by altering system time, reinstalling, VM cloning or similar means. Violation may result in licence termination.

Example: assume you have devices A, B, C, D with a licence limit of N (as published on purchase page), and A is least recently used. When activating device E at the limit, A is released and E activates successfully. If you later reactivate A, then B (now least recently used) is released. The rolling window involves automated decision-making. You have the right to request an explanation of the decision logic or to manage devices manually; see Privacy Policy Section 10.

7. Purchase, Pricing and Payment

Specific prices, subscription durations, promotions and currencies are as published on the official website and purchase pages at the time of the transaction; this Agreement contains no price information. Every edition can be ordered directly and self-service within the product or on the official website.
Payment methods: WeChat Pay, Alipay (domestic acquiring). An e-mail verification code must be passed before the order is placed, to establish that the address you supplied is yours; after payment, the licence key is delivered to that address.
Annual subscriptions and perpetual licences are offered in parallel, except that the Flagship Edition is offered only as a perpetual licence. The meaning of “perpetual licence” is as defined in Section 1 of this Agreement.
A perpetual licence includes subsequent minor version updates. We undertake no obligation to release subsequent major versions; should a future major version require separate payment, the licence term, feature scope and Commercial Licence you had already obtained before that change took effect remain unaffected.
When upgrading from a lower edition to a higher one, the fees already paid may be credited within the remaining validity of the original licence and the difference topped up. The specific credit rules are as published on the purchase page.
Price adjustments do not affect licences already in force; perpetual authorisations already purchased do not change as a result of subsequent price adjustments.

8. Refund Policy

The Software is a digital good. Once activated it is deemed delivered, and per PRC Consumer Rights Protection Law Art. 25, no unconditional 7-day return applies. This is stated expressly on the purchase page in advance.
Unactivated: within 7 days of purchase, if the licence key has not been activated on any device, you may request a full refund (mandatory where the condition is met, not subject to discretionary review).
Goodwill appeal (activated): within 7 days of purchase, if the licence has been activated but the Software genuinely cannot run properly in your environment, you may submit a manual appeal via support@fountrace.com and we will consider a refund or remedy at our discretion (a voluntary grace above statutory requirements, applicable only to the activated case, and not interchangeable with the mandatory refund in the preceding item).
Serious defect: if the Software has a defect materially affecting core functionality, we will prioritise repair; if not repaired within 30 days after confirmation, you may request a refund (per PRC Consumer Rights Protection Law Art. 24, a quality-defect refund is not subject to the "activated / past-window" limits).
Duplicate charge: if the same order is charged multiple times due to a payment-channel or system anomaly, the duplicated amount will be refunded unconditionally along the original channel upon verification (PRC Civil Code Art. 985, unjust enrichment — a statutory obligation).
Once a refund takes effect, the server revokes the corresponding licence; after online verification the client automatically downgrades to the Community Edition. Refunds are returned along the original payment channel.

9. Purchase Confirmation

Pursuant to PRC Civil Code Article 496 regarding the duty to highlight and explain standard terms, during the purchase flow you will be required to actively confirm the following:

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
I understand that this is a digital good and no unconditional refund applies after activation.
I understand that device management uses a rolling window mechanism (see Section 6).

10. Intellectual Property

Copyright, patent rights and other intellectual property in the Software belong to 仁怀市缃帙软件开发工作室 or the respective rightsholders. This Agreement grants a limited licence to use only, and constitutes no transfer of any intellectual property.

The Open-Source Core is released under the dual MIT OR Apache-2.0 licence; you may use, modify and redistribute its source code within the scope of that licence.
Closed-source commercial components do not fall within the scope of the open-source licence and are governed solely by this Agreement.
Copyright in third-party open-source components belongs to their respective rightsholders; see the third-party notices file (THIRD-PARTY.md) distributed with the product.

11. User Obligations

You agree to:

Comply with applicable PRC laws and regulations and not use the Software for any unlawful purpose.
Not interfere with or disrupt the Software or activation servers, and not send malicious requests.
Safeguard your licence key and registered email, and not share keys with others. If you suspect misuse, contact us immediately at license@fountrace.com.
Provide a valid email address at registration and purchase, and not obtain trial licences with false information.

12. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Software is provided “as is”, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. 仁怀市缃帙软件开发工作室 shall not be liable for: any loss arising from use of the Software; loss of or damage to data; business interruption; third-party compatibility issues; service interruption due to force majeure; or other indirect or consequential damage. Because indexing reads local file metadata and content, you should ensure that you have lawful access to the storage media used. You bear the consequences of operations such as deleting or moving files (including duplicate file cleanup); such operations go through the system Recycle Bin and can be restored within the applicable period.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the aggregate liability of 仁怀市缃帙软件开发工作室 in respect of the Software shall not exceed the fees you have actually paid for that licence.

14. Termination

The licence terminates upon any of the following:

General breach: you breach any provision of this Agreement and fail to cure within 14 days of written notice.
Material breach: detection of tampering, cracking, reverse engineering, or circumvention of technological protections; Licensor may terminate immediately without a cure period.
A subscription licence expiring without renewal.
An order being refunded or a subscription being cancelled (server-side licence revocation).

Upon termination you must immediately stop using the corresponding commercial features and delete all related copies (closed-source commercial components and their local caches). Community Edition features are unaffected; the Open-Source Core remains available under MIT OR Apache-2.0. Survival: Sections 10 (Intellectual Property), 12 (Disclaimers), 13 (Limitation of Liability), 14 (Termination), and 15 (Governing Law) survive termination of this Agreement.

15. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

This Agreement is governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the People's Republic of China (excluding HK, Macau and Taiwan). Disputes arising from this Agreement shall be resolved through friendly negotiation; failing which, either party may bring proceedings before the people's court having jurisdiction at the place of 仁怀市缃帙软件开发工作室. This Agreement is executed in both Chinese and English, and both versions are authoritative texts. Should any ambiguity or conflict arise between the two language versions, the Chinese version shall prevail. Severability: if any provision is held invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, it shall be limited or excluded to the minimum extent necessary; the remaining provisions continue in effect.

16. Amendments

We may adjust this Agreement as features and the legal environment change. The revised Agreement will be published in the application and on the official website, with the version number and effective date updated. Material changes (including: narrowing the scope of an existing authorisation, adding new payment obligations, changing the dispute resolution mechanism, or adding new categories of collected personal information) require 30 days advance notice and your explicit re-consent before taking effect. General changes require 7 days advance notice. Material changes will not diminish the licence term, feature scope or Commercial Licence you had already obtained before the change took effect. If you do not agree, you may stop using the commercial features during the notice period and request a refund (per Section 8); Community Edition features are unaffected. Continued use after a general change notice period expires constitutes acceptance.

17. Miscellaneous

The following provisions supplement this Agreement:

Entire agreement: this Agreement (together with the Privacy Policy) constitutes the entire agreement between you and Licensor regarding use of the Software, superseding all prior oral or written agreements.
Assignment: you may not assign any rights or obligations under this Agreement without Licensor's written consent.
Waiver: failure or delay by Licensor in exercising any right under this Agreement does not constitute a waiver of that right.