Cobia Dual-Use License

    StillSecure® licenses the Cobia™ Unified Network Platform™ (UNP) under a dual-use license structure:

    • Community License—Applies to users who download and install Cobia software for individual use, use internally in a business environment, or distribute for free as a stand-alone product. More>>
    • Commercial License(s) —Applies if your intended use is not permitted under the Community License, such as individuals and organizations that intend to distribute Cobia for a fee or use Cobia in their own products or products they distribute. More>>

    These license options are described in more detail below. See also License FAQs for additional information. StillSecure provides the license descriptions and the License FAQ for clarification purposes and to help you determine which license option is right for you. The terms of the applicable license will control your use of the Cobia software. Our license is a work in progress and StillSecure may change the licenses and licensing terms for Cobia at any time. Other third party software included with Cobia remains under their respective licenses.

    Community license

    The StillSecure Community License applies to users who download and install the Cobia software for individual use or for internal use in a business environment. Under the Community License, you may redistribute Cobia if you provide the Cobia software at no charge. You may not embed or bundle Cobia with other software products, distribute, or bundle it preinstalled on hardware.

    What can I do for free with Cobia under the StillSecure Community License?

    • You may use Cobia as part of your home network.
    • You may use Cobia in your business environment as part of your network infrastructure.
    • You may modify Cobia source code for your own use, or the use of others, provided you do not charge a fee for modified source code. All modified code remains licensed under the StillSecure Community License.
    • You may develop and distribute your own Cobia modules using part of, or the entire Cobia platform.
    • You may contribute back code modifications, new code, bug reports, user feedback, and ideas for Cobia via the online Cobia forums. For code modifications that you distribute or post, you will need to sign a Contribution Agreement.
    • If you are a consultant or involved in consulting services:
      • You may instruct a customer to download Cobia for use internally.
      • You may download Cobia to customer-owned hardware as a part of services you provide. You may not charge for the software or bundle it with other products, and the customer may only use it internally.
      • You may use Cobia at a customer site and charge for other services so long as you do not charge the customer for, or bundle the services with, the Cobia software.
      • Your consulting firm may use Cobia at customer sites and charge for your own network monitoring services, so long as you do not charge customers for the Cobia software.
    • If you are an independent software vendor (ISV)
      • You may develop and sell modules that plug into the Cobia framework. You cannot, however, bundle your module(s) with Cobia and sell the combined software without a StillSecure Commercial License.
      • You may modify Cobia and distribute the modified software free of charge so long as you comply with the terms of the StillSecure Community License. All modified code remains under the StillSecure Community License.

    Note: These are only examples for clarification purposes and are not intended to be a comprehensive list. These examples do not modify the StillSecure Community License in any way. The StillSecure Community License is subject to change at the discretion of StillSecure. If you have any licensing questions, please contact license@stillsecure.com

    Commercial license

    The StillSecure Commercial License applies if your usage of Cobia is not permitted under the StillSecure Community License. This includes when individuals and organizations intend to distribute Cobia for a fee, or include any part of Cobia in their own hardware or software products, regardless of whether or not a fee is being charged. Typical users in this category include resellers, managed service providers, original equipment manufacturers, commercial software developers, and independent software vendors (ISVs). The terms of the StillSecure Commercial License are available upon request at license@stillsecure.com.

    When do I need a StillSecure Commercial License for Cobia software?

    • If you install Cobia on hardware and sell it as an appliance or product.
    • If you bundle, integrate, or combine Cobia with your own software and sell the combined product.
    • If you resell Cobia support services. You need to purchase per-node Cobia support or a commercial support agreement from StillSecure.
    • If you develop a Cobia module and wish to include, bundle, or integrate Cobia as part of a product. A StillSecure Commercial License is not required if you only sell your Cobia module, but the customer must download and install the Cobia platform software independent of your Cobia-based product.

    Note: These are only examples for clarification purposes and are not intended to be a comprehensive list. These examples do not modify the StillSecure Community License in any way. The StillSecure Commercial License is subject to change at the discretion of StillSecure. If you have any licensing questions, please contact license@stillsecure.com

    License FAQs

    Is all of Cobia free?
    StillSecure is offering the Cobia UNP and many of the Cobia modules under the StillSecure Community License. This means you can download, use, and modify Cobia free of charge. You can also use Cobia as a part of many consulting services at no cost. Basically, you can use the Cobia platform for free as long as you are not charging for Cobia, distributing Cobia for a fee, utilizing Cobia in your product, or bundling Cobia on hardware. For everything else, you will need to obtain a StillSecure Commercial License.

    StillSecure plans to offer some modules for a fee in the future and these modules will be licensed under a StillSecure Commercial License.

    Why not offer Cobia under the GPL or other OSI license?
    Our desires for Cobia are to offer it with many of the benefits of open source software. While many open source software projects use the GPL, there are various interpretations of how the GPL applies when GPL software is used in products or services. Some have chosen to use the GPL and then add additional restrictions not specified in the GPL. We believe this can be confusing when attempting to understand licensing requirements.

    To avoid this confusion and make our license intentions clear, we chose to use a private license with many, but not all, of the characteristics of OSI licenses. The StillSecure Community License includes using the software, easy access to source code, modifying the source code, and contributing back code free of charge.

    Is Cobia open source?
    The definition of “open source” is evolving as companies create new licenses or add “riders” to OSI licenses such as the GPL. Some believe that open source means it must be one of the OSI compliant licenses (GPL, Mozilla, Apache, etc.). We’ve found what is most important to a majority of open source software users is that open source software is free of charge and include easy access to source code. Cobia software meets these requirements through our community license structure.

    How do I get support for Cobia?
    Free support for Cobia is available via the online support forums on the Cobia site. Cobia community members regularly ask questions and assist each other on the forums. StillSecure monitors these forums and contributes, but does not provide and guarantee an SLA for free support.

    StillSecure plans to offer paid for phone, email, business hours, and 24/7 support options.

    If I modify the Cobia software, do I need to sign a Contribution Agreement?
    The StillSecure Community License requires that you sign a Contribution Agreement only if you distribute modifications you make to the Cobia Software. If you use your modifications for internal use, you don’t need to sign a Contribution Agreement. If later you decide to distribute these modifications, you will be required to sign a Contribution Agreement prior to your distribution. Please note that posting modifications to the Cobia forum website or other web sites is considered distribution.

    What is the Contribution Agreement and what is it for?
    StillSecure licenses Cobia under a dual-license structure; the Community License and Commercial License. We encourage contributions from the community under the Community License. To maintain the quality of our products, StillSecure will exercise discretion as to whether or not specific contributions are included in the official Cobia source tree. We may desire to include contributions made to our community source code base in our commercially licensed products as well. The Contribution Agreement grants StillSecure certain rights to your modifications to the Cobia software. You remain the copyright holder to your modifications. Signing a Contribution Agreement does not prevent you from distributing your modifications with the Cobia code. We are simply asking for the flexibility to include your contributions within all versions of Cobia software that we distribute.

    You can find a copy of the Contribution Agreement here.

    What do you mean by “internal use?”

    Examples of internal use include:

    • Using the Cobia software as part of your home network.
    • Using the Cobia software in your business environment as part of your network infrastructure.
    • Instructing a customer to whom you provide consulting services to download the Cobia software for its internal use.
    • Downloading the Cobia software to customer-owned hardware as a part of consulting services you provide. You may not charge for the software, bundle it with other products, and the customer may only use it internally.
    • Using the Cobia software at a customer site and charging for other consulting services, so long as you do not charge the customer for, or bundle the services with, the Cobia software.
    • Using the Cobia software at customer sites and charging for your own network monitoring services so long as you do not charge customers for the Cobia software or bundle Cobia with the services.

    What do you mean by “consideration” in the license? Is this the same as a fee?
    We use “consideration” in the broad sense of the word. Consideration is not limited to a person paying money or a fee for the software. The license contains a list of the forms of consideration including both direct and indirect, cash and non-cash such as money, goods (whether tangible or intangible), services, referrals, anything of value (such as foregoing a legal right or claim), or an offer or promise of any of the above.

    Why do you require that I distribute unmodified Cobia code using the Cobia trademark but require that I remove all Cobia trademarks for distribution of modified code?
    Simply, StillSecure has no control over someone else’s modifications and distribution of those modifications of Cobia. As such, we do not want to have our trademarks associated with a derivation of the code that may or may not be in a direction or have the same level of quality that StillSecure intends.

    More specifically, we license the Cobia software to you under copyright law, which is very different from trademark law. We strictly enforce the use of our trademarks. A trademark is a word, phrase, logo, design, or a combination of these things that identifies the source of a product or service. Trademarks help prevent confusion in the marketplace by distinguishing one company’s products from another. The StillSecure trademarks are a symbol to our customers, partners, and the market of reliability and cutting edge/innovative technology.

    As owner of the StillSecure trademarks, we must police and enforce the use of our trademarks in order to make sure our trademarks continue to represent the quality products that we develop. We do not allow you to remove our trademarks from unmodified code as this identifies StillSecure as the source of the product. When you modify the Cobia software, StillSecure is no longer the source of the product. StillSecure doesn’t make or control the changes and we don’t want the public to think that we have approved or endorsed changes outside of our control. Please see the StillSecure Trademark Policy for additional information on use of our trademarks.

    Why do you require that I link to the Cobia website for downloads of the Cobia software?
    We require that downloads of unmodified Cobia binaries be made through a link to our website to help ensure faster, more reliable downloads as we are the identified source of that product.

    What is a legal entity?
    A legal entity is any entity recognized by the state or federal government including any sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, joint venture, limited liability company, association, trust, unincorporated organization, or a government, agency, political subdivision. An agency may be a for-profit, not-for-profit, and non-profit corporation or partnership.

    Who do I contact if I have a question about licensing?
    If you have a question about your use of Cobia software, the StillSecure Community License, or would like to inquire about Commercial License use, please contact license@stillsecure.com.