Terms of service

Scope

These terms cover this website, the GHub applications, the hosted GPlatform services, and the other services Gelhaus Solutions operates that are neither: Contribution Checker, Discord Tickets and DAnalytics are hosted by us without being part of GHub or running on GPlatform. In each case they apply except where something higher up the ladder below says otherwise.

Which document wins. Several documents can speak to one situation. Where they conflict, this is the order, highest first:

1. A separate agreement signed by both of us.
2. The licence shipped with an application, for questions about the licence.
3. The terms for the particular product, at /apps/<product>/terms.
4. The processing annex for that product, for questions about personal data processed on your behalf.
5. The data processing agreement, for the same questions where the annex is silent.
6. These general terms.
7. Anything else on this website.

A document lower down is not overridden wholesale by one above it. Only the conflicting point gives way, and the rest of the lower document continues to apply.

"GHub" means the products named on the G scheme: GAdvisory, GControl, GPlatform Control, GPlatform Billing, GPlatform SSO, GeGroups, GAnalytics, GBoarse, GOpenCSR, GOpenCDR, GOpenCNR and GArness. A service we host that is not one of those is still ours to run properly; it is simply licensed on its own terms rather than on GHub's.

The provider is Gelhaus Solutions, a sole proprietorship whose details are in the legal notice.

Software and licences

Your right to use the hosted services. For the term of your contract we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the hosted services as they are described, which you may not sublicense. It ends only when your contract ends, as set out under "Term and termination".

Software you download or run yourself is governed by its own licence, stated in its repository or shipped with it: the AGPL-3.0, the GPL-3.0, the Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2) with our business-licence rider, or our source-available licence. Nothing in these terms restricts those licences, or your rights under Sections 69d and 69e UrhG.

No further rights are granted, except as these terms state or the law provides. A description on this website is not a licence, and it does not extend or change one.

Applications you run on your own infrastructure are yours to operate. We have no access to those systems, no visibility into them, and no control over them.

What "commercial use" means

Several products are free to run for non-commercial purposes and need a business licence otherwise. The term is defined in the licence itself and is repeated here word for word so that the two cannot come to mean different things:

Commercial purposes include use in, by or for a business or other commercial undertaking, whether or not the software is provided to anyone outside it, and whether or not a fee is charged. Non-commercial use is not restricted by this paragraph.

Where the licence file shipped with an application and this website disagree about the licence, the licence file shipped with the application wins, and we would like to be told so that the website can be corrected.

Signing up

We are not obliged to accept a sign-up. We may decline a sign-up or an invitation on objective grounds, and never on a ground the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) prohibits.

Sanctions and export control

You confirm that you are not a person or an organisation subject to EU sanctions, and that you do not use the services in breach of sanctions or export-control law. Where the law requires it, we may refuse a sign-up or end a contract. Some products screen against the EU sanctions list, as their terms describe.

Hosted services

Where a hosted GPlatform service is made available, the account holder is responsible for the accounts they create, for the content they place in the service, and for the lawfulness of the processing they carry out with it. Where that involves personal data of third parties, a separate data processing agreement applies.

Subcontractors. We may have parts of a service performed by subcontractors and service providers. We remain responsible to you for them.

Changing and ending services

We change what a service provides only for one of these reasons: a change in the law, security, technical development, or a change made by one of our upstream providers. The change costs you nothing extra, and we announce it in advance. A change that security requires at once, or that the law requires, may be made without notice; we then announce it as soon as possible afterwards. Where it materially impairs your use of the service, you may end the contract free of charge within 30 days of the announcement or of the change, whichever is later.

We end a free service with at least 60 days' notice, and you can export your data for 30 days after it ends. A paid service ends only as "Term and termination" sets out.

Where you end a paid contract free of charge under these terms, we refund, pro rata, what you have paid for the time after it ends.

Moving your account

We may move your account to another sign-in service we operate, such as GPlatform SSO, for security, for maintenance, or to bring our products under one account. We email you at least 30 days in advance, say what moves, and move only the data needed to sign you in and to keep what you hold. If the move makes your access materially harder, you may end the contract free of charge within 30 days of the move.

We move your account to another company only as "Transfer" sets out.

Your content, and the licence you give us

You keep all rights in what you submit. You grant Gelhaus Solutions a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, display and transmit the content you upload, submit, store, send, report or advertise through a service, and to adapt it technically (its format, its size, previews of it). The licence covers only what is needed to operate and provide the service in which you submitted the content, as these terms and that service's terms describe.

Who else receives it. We may sublicense it, for that same purpose only, to:

1. the providers who run the services for us (hosting, mail, backups, error reporting), and our other products where the content is shown or used for the same purpose;
2. the operators who carry it: GOpenCDR mirror and TLD operators, GOpenCNR hub and transit operators, transparency-log witnesses, and anyone mirroring the public registry or the log, so that they can serve and verify it;
3. for GAdvisory, the recipients of advisories: the CVE Program, GitHub Security Advisories, OSV, and the affected vendors and maintainers;
4. a successor of the business that takes over the service, as "Transfer" sets out;
5. companies affiliated with Gelhaus Solutions (subsidiaries, a parent company and sibling companies), only to operate and provide the services.

Nobody receives a licence to your content for their own purposes.

When it ends. The licence ends when you delete the content or your account. Two things are excepted: copies in backups, which expire within 90 days, and permanent records.

Permanent records. Some content is public and permanent by design: transparency-log entries, published zone data, the public registry history, motions and comments entered into a council's record, and published advisories and CVE records. You are told so before you submit it. For that content you grant us, and anyone who mirrors or verifies the record, a licence without time limit to copy and publish it as part of that record.

GAdvisory. For a report you submit to GAdvisory, you also allow us to edit, summarise and translate it in order to publish an advisory, crediting you as you choose.

What the licence does not touch. Your rights under data protection law and under Section 42 UrhG are unaffected. The licence is not a legal basis for processing personal data; the privacy notices say what is.

No service level

Except where a separate signed agreement states one in words, nothing here carries a service level. No uptime, no availability, no response time and no restoration time is owed or implied.

Maintenance can make a service unavailable for a time. Nothing outside a signed agreement creates a service level: not a changelog, not a status page, not a roadmap, and not anything said in a support conversation. How we change or end a service is set out under "Changing and ending services".

No warranty

Everything here is provided as it is and as it happens to be available, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, and is used at your own risk. There is no assurance that it is fit for any particular purpose, that it will run uninterrupted or error-free, or that any defect will be corrected.

Software provided free of charge is provided gratuitously, and liability for it is limited to intent and gross negligence (Sections 521 and 599 BGB). Free and open-source components carry the warranty their own licences give them, which is none.

Where a service is paid for, the statutory rights of a consumer are unaffected by this section.

Acceptable use

Do not use these services to break the law, to attack others, to send unsolicited bulk messages, or to interfere with the operation of the service for anyone else. Security research against your own installation is welcome; against our infrastructure it is welcome under the disclosure policy and not otherwise.

When we restrict content or an account

On what grounds. We may remove or restrict content, and restrict, suspend or end an account, for illegal content, for a breach of these terms or of an acceptable use policy, under a binding order of a court or an authority, or for non-payment as "Payment" sets out. We act diligently, objectively and proportionately (Art. 14(4) DSA).

We may also end the contract for a free service by ordinary notice, as "Term and termination" sets out, without giving reasons. Where we end an account because of its content or its conduct, we do so on the grounds above and in the way this section describes.

What you are told. For every restriction on the grounds above, you get a statement of reasons no later than when it takes effect: what we did, why, under which rule, on which facts, for how long, whether automated means were used, and how you can challenge it (Art. 17 DSA). Where the law forbids telling you, you are told as soon as it no longer does.

Before we suspend or end your account, we tell you, let you respond, and decide again.

When we act first. Only in these cases do we act before hearing you, and hear you afterwards: child sexual abuse material, a threat to life or limb, malware or phishing, a compromised account, an attack on our systems or on others, a match on a sanctions list, and a binding order of a court or an authority. The statement of reasons still reaches you no later than when the measure takes effect.

How to challenge it. As each product's terms set out. In GOpenCSR, GOpenCDR and GOpenCNR, the appeal is heard by the Registry Council of the product concerned. Where a product's terms set out no appeal, reply to the statement of reasons or write to contact@gplatform.org, and we review the decision and answer with reasons. The courts remain open to you whatever the outcome.

Liability

To the fullest extent the law permits, we are not liable for any damage arising from the use of these services, from their unavailability, from their change or withdrawal, or from any loss or corruption of data.

Where mandatory law does not permit that, the following applies instead. Liability is unlimited for damage arising from injury to life, body or health, for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence, where a guarantee has been given, and in the scope of the Produkthaftungsgesetz. For simple negligence, liability exists only for the breach of an essential contractual obligation (an obligation whose fulfilment makes proper performance of the agreement possible in the first place, and on whose observance you may regularly rely), and is then limited to the damage typically foreseeable for an agreement of this kind.

Within those limits, liability for indirect damage, consequential damage, lost profit, lost savings, lost or corrupted data and business interruption is excluded.

Nothing in these terms limits liability where the law does not permit it to be limited, and nothing in them affects the statutory rights of a consumer.

Your data is your responsibility

Keeping your own backups, and testing that they restore, is your duty and not ours. This is true whether you run the software yourself or we host it for you, and it is true whether or not a backup feature exists in the product.

Where data is lost or corrupted, liability is limited to the cost that recovering it from a backup kept properly would have caused.

Where you are a business

Where you are an entrepreneur within the meaning of Section 14 BGB, and in addition to the limits above: liability for simple negligence is capped at the fees paid for the affected service in the twelve months before the event, and claims lapse twelve months after you became aware of them, except where the law requires a longer period.

Your own terms do not apply. A business customer's own general terms never become part of an agreement with us, even if we do not object to them.

This section does not apply to consumers.

Claims by others

You are responsible for what you do with these services, for the lawfulness of it, and for everything done under your account.

Where a third party brings a claim against us because of your use of a service (for infringement of their rights, for unlawful content, or for a breach of these terms), you indemnify us against that claim and against the reasonable cost of defending it. This does not apply where you are not responsible for the circumstances giving rise to the claim.

Beyond our control

We are not responsible for failures caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control, including network and power failures, the acts or omissions of upstream providers, denial-of-service attacks, industrial action, and legal or regulatory orders. For as long as such an event lasts, the affected obligations are suspended.

Early access

Where something is offered as a preview, a beta or an early-access account, it is offered for evaluation while it is still being developed. It may break, and the data in it may not survive. No service level applies to it, and no service level can be agreed for it. It is changed and ended as "Changing and ending services" sets out.

Payment

Non-payment. We suspend a paid service for non-payment only after we have sent you a reminder and 14 days have passed since, and never for an amount you have properly disputed. While it is suspended, you can still read and export your data.

Set-off. You may set off against our claims only claims that are undisputed, finally decided by a court, or arise from the same contractual relationship.

Term and termination

Free services. Either of us may end the contract for a free service with four weeks' notice by email, without giving reasons. You may also close your account at any time, which ends the contract at once. We do not use this notice to end a service for everyone: a free service ends for everyone only as "Changing and ending services" sets out, and the contract ends with it.

Paid services. Ordinary notice ends a paid service only at the end of the term you have paid for.

For cause. Either of us may end any contract for cause (Section 314 BGB). Where the cause is a breach of the contract, a warning or a deadline to put it right comes first, unless the law makes one unnecessary.

After the contract ends, you can export your data for 30 days. Then we delete it, except what the law requires us to keep, permanent records, and what a product's privacy notice or terms say it keeps, for as long as they say; copies in backups expire within 90 days.

Our names and marks

"Gelhaus Solutions", "GHub", "GPlatform" and the product names are ours. Nothing here grants a right to use them.

You may of course say what you use, describe it accurately, and refer to a product by its name in order to talk about it. What you may not do is use a name or mark in a way that suggests we endorse, supply or are responsible for something we are not, or use one in your own product name, domain or logo.

Where a licence requires notices to be kept intact, that requirement is part of the licence and this section does not soften it.

Ideas you send us

If you send us feedback about a product (a bug report, a feature request, a suggestion in a support conversation), you allow us to use it to build and improve our products, without obligation and without a fee. This is separate from the licence to your content, and deliberately narrow: it covers the suggestion, not anything else you happen to have shown us in making it, and it does not touch your confidential information or the personal data covered by the processing agreement.

Transfer

You may not transfer your rights or obligations under an agreement with us without our agreement in writing, which we do not withhold unreasonably.

We may transfer ours to a successor of the business, in whole or in part. Where that happens we tell you beforehand, and where the agreement is an ongoing one you may end it, without cost, up to a month after being told. Your account, and the licence to your content, pass to another company only in this way.

Notices

We send notices to the email address on your account. You may give us any notice by email, to contact@gplatform.org or to an address a product's terms name for it. We never require a stricter form from you than text form.

Which language governs

These documents are published in English and German. Both are prepared with the same care, and neither is a machine translation of the other.

Where the two differ on a point of substance, the German version governs where German law applies to the agreement, and the English version governs otherwise. Tell us about any difference you find; a divergence between the two is a mistake to be fixed rather than a choice.

If a clause does not hold

If a provision of these terms is or becomes ineffective, the rest remains in force. The ineffective provision is replaced by the statutory rule.

Governing law and jurisdiction

German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer living in another EU country, the mandatory consumer protection of that country still applies. Where both of us are merchants, the courts at our seat have jurisdiction.

New versions of these terms

These terms, and every document that says it changes through the process set out here, may be replaced by a new version. For casual use of this website without an account, the version published here at the time of use applies.

A material change is emailed to you at least six weeks before it takes effect. At your next sign-in you are asked to accept the new version, with its full text and its archived version linked. The request does not list what changed.

The first change is announced with what is changing. The version this one replaces, of 6 September 2026 (gs-terms-2026-09-06 in the document archive), promised to tell you what is changing, so the change from it to this version is announced with what is changing. After that, requests do not list the changes; only a materially changed privacy notice is announced with what changed.

A new version applies to you only once you accept it. Until then, the version you accepted applies.

Free services. If you have not accepted when the six weeks are over, your account is restricted until you accept: you can still sign in, read, export your data, exercise your rights under data protection law, close your account and accept, and nothing else.

Paid services are never restricted. If you do not accept, you stay on the version you accepted until we end the contract, which we do only at its next ordinary end date.

Exporting your data and your rights under data protection law never depend on accepting.

Privacy notices are not something you accept. When one changes materially, we announce it to you with what changed.

Every version is kept, with its date, in the document archive, so you can read the version you accepted and compare it with the new one.