Terms of Service

Overview

These Terms of Service govern your access to and use of fossil, including the fossil website, downloads, desktop application, license activation, updates, and related support. By buying, downloading, activating, or using fossil, you agree to these Terms.

If you use fossil on behalf of a company or other organization, you confirm that you have authority to accept these Terms for that organization.

Who we are

fossil is a local-first desktop application for inspecting, validating, and reviewing product interfaces. You can contact us at hello@fossil.design. Publisher details will also be available in the Legal Notice.

The product

fossil is provided as a desktop app. The current public offer is a Local License: a one-time purchase for private local inspection of target projects on your machine.

fossil is designed so that target projects stay on your machine. You remain responsible for the projects, files, credentials, services, and third-party accounts you choose to inspect or connect while using fossil.

Purchases and payment

• Checkout, payment processing, taxes, receipts, customer portal access, and license-key delivery are handled by Polar.
• Prices are shown before checkout. Taxes may be calculated and added by Polar during checkout.
• After a successful purchase, you receive access to the purchased license according to the checkout and license delivery flow.
• We do not receive your full payment card number.

License grant

Subject to these Terms and your payment of applicable fees, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to install and use the fossil desktop app for your own internal product inspection and review workflows.

The Local License is permanent for the purchased major version of fossil. It includes one year of updates from the purchase date, unless the checkout page or a written offer says otherwise. We may sell major upgrades or renewed update access separately in the future.

Activation and license keys

• fossil may require a valid license key before privileged desktop features are available.
• License keys may have activation limits to prevent abuse or unauthorized sharing.
• You are responsible for keeping your license key private.
• We may suspend, revoke, or refuse activation for keys obtained fraudulently, shared beyond permitted limits, refunded, charged back, or used in violation of these Terms.

Updates and support

We may provide updates, fixes, and improvements for fossil. Updates can change, add, or remove functionality as the product evolves. Support is provided through the contact channels we make available, currently hello@fossil.design.

We try to keep fossil useful and reliable, but we do not promise that every requested feature, integration, runtime, framework, or platform will be supported.

Acceptable use

You must not:

• share, sell, rent, sublicense, or redistribute your license key except where we expressly allow it;
• circumvent license checks, activation limits, technical protections, or security boundaries;
• use fossil to access systems, accounts, code, or data you are not authorized to inspect;
• upload, test, or process illegal content or data in violation of third-party rights;
• interfere with Polar, PostHog, Render, AI tools, or other third-party services used with fossil;
• reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive source code from fossil except where applicable law gives you a non-waivable right to do so.

Your projects and data

You keep ownership of your target projects, source code, screenshots, reports, and other materials. These Terms do not give us ownership of your content.

You are responsible for ensuring that your use of fossil complies with the rules, contracts, licenses, privacy obligations, and security requirements that apply to your projects and third-party services.

Third-party services

fossil may link to or integrate with third-party services, including Polar for checkout and licensing, PostHog for analytics, Render for website hosting, and AI tools or services where you choose to use them with fossil. Third-party services are governed by their own terms and privacy policies.

Refunds and withdrawal

Refund and cancellation rights depend on the law that applies to you, the checkout terms shown by Polar, and whether you have already received access to the digital product or license key.

If you are a consumer in the European Union or United Kingdom, you may have a statutory withdrawal or cancellation right for distance purchases. For digital content or software, you may lose that right only where the checkout or purchase flow clearly asks you to receive immediate access before the withdrawal period ends and to acknowledge that this means losing the withdrawal right. If that confirmation is not collected, we will not rely on that exception. We will honor any non-waivable consumer rights that apply to your purchase.

For refund questions, contact hello@fossil.design or use the customer portal made available through Polar.

Disclaimers

fossil is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, to the maximum extent permitted by law. We do not guarantee that fossil will be uninterrupted, error-free, compatible with every target project, or suitable for every workflow.

Nothing in these Terms limits any statutory warranty, consumer protection, or other right that cannot legally be excluded.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or business opportunities.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability for claims relating to fossil is limited to the amount you paid for the license giving rise to the claim.

Termination

You may stop using fossil at any time. We may suspend or terminate access to license activation, updates, support, or related services if you breach these Terms, misuse the product, violate the law, or create security, payment, fraud, or abuse risk.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as fossil changes. Updated Terms apply prospectively from the date they are posted, unless a different date is stated. Material changes will not retroactively remove rights you already received under a paid license unless required by law or necessary to address security, abuse, or legal risk.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by French law, except where mandatory consumer protection laws in your country of residence require otherwise. Courts with jurisdiction under applicable law may hear disputes relating to these Terms.

Privacy

Our processing of personal data is described in the Privacy Policy.