Scibrarian Desktop End User License Agreement

Effective date: September 1, 2026

This End User License Agreement (this “Agreement”) is a legal agreement between you and Anthony Salvato (“the Project Owner”, “I”, or “me”) covering the Scibrarian desktop application described in Section 1.

By installing, copying, or using the Software, you accept this Agreement. If you do not accept it, do not install or use the Software, and delete any copy you hold.

If you are accepting on behalf of a company or other legal entity, you represent that you have authority to bind that entity and its affiliates, and “you” and “your” refer to that entity and its affiliates.

1. Definitions

“Software” means the Scibrarian desktop application distributed by the Project Owner as a Pro build — that is, a build that includes the Pro Module — together with its accompanying documentation and any updates supplied under Section 8.

“Pro Module” means the proprietary component of the Software that implements pairing, agency holdings, and license verification. It is not licensed under the AGPL.

“Open-Source Components” means third-party software included in the Software under its own license terms, including the Electron and Chromium runtimes and the libraries identified in the third-party notices accompanying the Software.

“Free Build” means the separate Scibrarian desktop build published under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 (“AGPL”), which contains no Pro Module. The Free Build is not licensed under this Agreement.

“License Key” means a signed key issued by the Project Owner that permits an installation to act as a Master.

“Master” means an installation that mints pairing codes and holds a shared library for an organization. “Node” or “Spoke” means an installation that pairs with a Master.

“Your Content” means the documents, files, metadata, and other material you supply to, or store in, the Software.

2. What this Agreement covers, and what it does not

The Software combines proprietary code with code that is also published as free software. This Agreement governs your use of the Software as a whole, as distributed by the Project Owner, subject to the following.

Open-Source Components keep their own licenses. Nothing in this Agreement limits, supersedes, or adds conditions to any right you have under those licenses. To the extent this Agreement conflicts with the license of an Open-Source Component as applied to that component, that license governs.

The AGPL-published portions. Most of the Software other than the Pro Module is also published by the Project Owner under the AGPL in the public Scibrarian repository at https://github.com/scibrarian/scibrarian. The Project Owner holds the copyright in that code and offers it under more than one set of terms. Receiving it here, as part of the Software, does not reduce, waive, or condition any right you have or may obtain in the separately published AGPL version, which remains available on its own terms. Corresponding source for the AGPL-licensed and other open-source portions of the Software is available at https://github.com/scibrarian/scibrarian.

The Free Build is outside this Agreement entirely. If you are running the Free Build, the AGPL alone governs your use of it and this document does not apply to you.

3. License grant

Subject to your compliance with this Agreement, the Project Owner grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to:

1. install and use the Software on computers you own or control, for your own use or for the internal business use of the entity on whose behalf you accepted this Agreement; and
2. make a reasonable number of copies of the Software for backup and installation purposes.

The Software is currently supplied without charge for use as a Node. The Project Owner may charge for future versions; that would not affect any version you already hold. Use as a Master requires a License Key and is governed by Section 5.

4. Restrictions

Except as Section 2 permits, or as applicable law permits notwithstanding a contractual restriction, you will not:

1. distribute, sell, rent, lease, lend, sublicense, or otherwise make the Software available to any third party, other than by directing them to obtain it from the Project Owner;
2. reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Pro Module, or attempt to derive its source code or algorithms. This restriction applies only to the Pro Module, applies only to the extent it may lawfully be imposed on you, and does not apply where you hold a non-waivable right to do so, including for interoperability under applicable law;
3. modify, circumvent, or disable license verification, seat limits, pairing expiry, pairing revocation, or the controls that determine which collections are shared with a Master; or use a License Key that was not issued to you;
4. use the Software to provide a service to, or operate it for the benefit of, anyone other than yourself or the entity on whose behalf you accepted this Agreement;
5. remove, obscure, or alter any copyright, license, or attribution notice in or on the Software; or
6. use the Software in violation of applicable law or of Section 6.

5. License Keys, seats, and terms

This Section applies only if you have been issued a License Key. Without one, the Software operates as a Node, and nothing in this Section restricts that use.

A License Key states an organization, a seat count, and an expiry date. The seat count is the maximum number of Nodes that may be actively paired with your Master at one time. On expiry, existing pairings continue to function and no new pairings may be added until the key is renewed. A License Key is issued to you and may not be shared, published, or transferred.

Verification is local and silent by design. The Software checks a License Key on your own machine, using a signature it can verify offline. It does not contact the Project Owner for permission to run, does not report your seat count, organization name, or library contents, and contains no mechanism that disables it remotely. That is a deliberate property of a self-hosted product, and the consequence is that compliance with seat counts and license terms rests on this Agreement rather than on enforcement by the software. Not more than once in any twelve-month period, and on at least thirty days of written notice, the Project Owner may ask you to confirm in writing the number of Nodes paired with your Master.

6. Your Content, and material you do not own

6.1 It stays yours, and it stays with you. You retain all rights in Your Content. The Software stores it on your own machine and, if you pair with a Master, transmits it only to that Master. The Project Owner operates no server that receives it and is never its custodian.

6.2 You are responsible for holding the necessary rights. Journal articles and similar materials are typically licensed from publishers rather than owned, and those licenses are frequently limited to a single reader, a single use, or a named institution. You are solely responsible for ensuring that your storage, copying, transfer, and retention of Your Content is permitted by the licenses, subscriptions, and agreements under which you obtained it, and by applicable copyright law.

6.3 The Software does not clear rights, and its behaviour is not permission. The Software records what you hold and reports where copies have gone. It does not determine, verify, obtain, or grant any right to copy or distribute a document. Nothing about what the Software allows you to do — connecting a collection to a Master, copying a file up to it, or downloading a file another Node supplied — is a representation by the Project Owner that a particular copy or transfer is permitted. Features that move files between installations are inactive until you enable them, and the decision to enable them is yours and your organization’s.

6.4 Pairing with someone else’s Master. When you connect a collection to a Master operated by another party, that party receives copies of the files in that collection and may retain them. Disconnecting a collection stops further copies; it does not recall copies already sent, and no control in the Software can. Your arrangements with the operator of that Master are between you and them, and the Project Owner is not a party to them.

6.5 Indemnity. You will indemnify and hold the Project Owner harmless against third-party claims, damages, liabilities, and reasonable costs (including legal fees) arising from Your Content or from your use of the Software in breach of Section 6.2. This Section does not apply to the extent such an indemnity is unenforceable against you as a consumer under applicable law.

7. Data and network connections

The Software runs on your machine. It listens only on the loopback interface, stores its database and files in your per-user application data directory, and has no account system.

The Project Owner receives nothing. The Software sends the Project Owner no telemetry, no usage reporting, no library contents, and no license check-ins.

On your behalf, the Software makes network requests to third-party services in order to do its work: NCBI and PubMed (including the E-utilities API), the NLM journal catalog, OpenAlex, NIH iCite, and the DOI resolver at doi.org; to the update feed described in Section 8; and, if you pair, to the Master you paired with. Those services are operated by third parties under their own terms and privacy policies, and the Project Owner does not control them.

8. Updates

The Software checks a release feed for new versions and may download and install them. Pro builds follow a release feed reserved for Pro builds; installing a build from any other feed over the Software may silently remove the Pro Module and the pairing that depends on it.

Where the Software offers a setting to disable automatic updates, you may use it. Declining updates may leave you on a version that no longer interoperates with a Master or with the third-party services in Section 7. Updates are supplied under this Agreement unless an update is accompanied by different terms, in which case those terms govern that update.

9. Ownership and feedback

The Software is licensed, not sold. The Project Owner and its licensors retain all right, title, and interest in the Software, including the Pro Module and all intellectual property rights in it. No rights are granted except those expressly stated in this Agreement or in the license of an Open-Source Component.

If you send the Project Owner suggestions, bug reports, or other feedback about the Software, the Project Owner may use it without restriction and without obligation to you. Feedback is not Your Content, and you should not include confidential material in it.

10. Term and termination

This Agreement takes effect when you first install or use the Software and continues until terminated.

You may terminate at any time by ceasing to use the Software and deleting your copies. The Project Owner may terminate this Agreement if you materially breach it and do not cure the breach within thirty days of written notice.

On termination you must stop using the Software and delete all copies of it. Your Content is not affected: it is stored on your machine, it remains yours, and nothing in this Section requires you to delete it or prevents you from exporting it.

Sections 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 16 survive termination.

11. No warranty

The Software is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Project Owner disclaims all warranties and conditions, express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, or quiet enjoyment.

The Project Owner does not warrant that the Software will be uninterrupted or error-free, that defects will be corrected, that it will interoperate with any particular third-party service, or that data stored in it will not be lost. You are responsible for maintaining your own backups; the application data directory identified in the documentation is the thing to back up.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties. Where that is so, the exclusions above apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing in this Agreement excludes or limits your non-waivable statutory rights as a consumer.

12. Not scientific, medical, or legal advice

The Software retrieves, stores, and organises bibliographic records and documents. It is not a medical device and provides no medical advice. Its metadata, matching, deduplication, citation counts, holdings reports, and any information it shows about rights or licensing may be incomplete, out of date, or wrong.

Do not rely on the Software as the sole basis for a clinical, regulatory, publication, or purchasing decision, and do not rely on it as a determination that you hold the rights to a document. Verify against the source record and the underlying license.

13. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Project Owner will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, loss of goodwill, business interruption, or the cost of substitute software, arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the Software, however caused and on any theory of liability, even if advised of the possibility.

The Project Owner’s total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the Software will not exceed the greater of the amounts you paid the Project Owner for the Software in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or US$100.

Nothing in this Agreement excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law. Where you deal as a consumer, the limitations above apply only to the extent permitted by the consumer protection law that applies to you.

These limitations apply notwithstanding the failure of essential purpose of any limited remedy, and they reflect an allocation of risk that is part of the basis on which the Software is supplied without charge.

14. Export and sanctions compliance

You represent that you are not located in, and will not use or export the Software in or to, any country or territory, or on behalf of any person or entity, that is subject to applicable export control or economic sanctions restrictions.

15. Changes to this Agreement

The Project Owner may publish a revised version of this Agreement for future versions of the Software. A revised Agreement applies to a version of the Software you install after it takes effect; it does not change the terms of a version you already hold. If you do not accept a revised Agreement, do not install the version it accompanies.

16. General

Governing law. This Agreement is governed by the laws of Texas, without regard to its conflict-of-laws provisions, and the courts of Texas have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes arising from it. Where you deal as a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory law of the country in which you reside.

Severability. If any provision of this Agreement is held unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.

No waiver. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.

Assignment. You may not assign or transfer this Agreement without the Project Owner’s prior written consent. The Project Owner may assign it in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets relating to the Software.

Entire agreement. This Agreement, together with the licenses of the Open-Source Components, is the entire agreement between you and the Project Owner concerning the Software, and it supersedes any prior agreement or understanding on that subject. It does not govern the Free Build, which is licensed under the AGPL, and it does not modify the Contributor License Agreement, which governs contributions to the public repository.

Contact. support@scibrarian.com