Discourse
Free Hosting Terms

Version 0.0.0

These terms make up an agreement between CDCK and Customer:

Background

• CDCK develops Discourse, a computer software platform for running Internet discussion forums. CDCK also develops Discourse Plugins that give Discourse additional functionality and Discourse Themes and Discourse Theme Components that change Discourse’s appearance. CDCK publishes Documentation for Discourse and Discourse Plugins at https://www.discourse.org/features.

Definitions

• Access Credentials means a user name and password, license key, or other secret that affords use of Customer’s Forum or systems providing Customer’s Forum.

• Account Dashboard means the account management section of the Administrator Dashboard.

• Administrator Dashboard means the pages of Customer’s Forum accessible only to administrative users.

• Affiliate means any legal entity that has control over, is under the control of, or is under common control of another entity, where control means ownership of substantially all the assets of an entity, or the power to direct its management and policies by vote, contract, or otherwise. Control can be direct or indirect.

• Service Month means a successive, month-long period. The first Service Month starts on the date of the agreement. The plural is Service Months.

• Customer Data means data that:

  • Users furnish to Customer’s Forum, such as by entering it or configuring Customer’s Forum to gather or receive it, if doing so doesn’t breach this agreement

  • Customer’s Forum collects about Users and how they use Customer’s Forum

• Customer’s Forum means the forum CDCK hosts under this agreement.

• Customer Personnel means Customer’s employees and each Customer Affiliate’s employees, as well as independent contractors providing services to Customer.

• Data Breach means malicious technical compromise or unauthorized disclosure of Customer Data.

• Disaster means:

  • fire, flood, earthquake, pandemic, and other natural disasters

  • declared and undeclared wars, acts of terrorism, sabotage, riots, civil disorders, rebellions, and revolutions

  • extraordinary malfunction of Internet infrastructure, data centers, or communications utilities

  • malicious technical attack on systems providing Customer’s Forum

  • government actions taken in response to any of these causes

• Feature Set means all Software Features described in the Documentation on the date of this agreement.

• Indemnification means indemnifying and holding harmless for all liability, expenses, damages, and costs.

• Intellectual Property Right means any patent, copyright, trademark, or trade secret right, or any other legal right typically referred to as an intellectual property right.

• Latest Version of Discourse means the most recent version of Discourse that CDCK publicly promotes for use in production, rather than test or development, systems.

• Lawsuit means a lawsuit brought by one side against the other, related to this agreement.

• Legal Claim means claims, demands, lawsuits, and other legal actions. A Legal Claim may be contract claims, tort claims, statutory claims, or any other kind. The plural is Legal Claims.

• Notice means a written communication from one side to the other per Notice Process.

• Permission means prior Notice of consent.

• San Francisco Courts means the California state courts sitting in San Francisco or the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

• Service Plan means the tier of forum hosting service Customer selected on the Signup Form, such as “Basic”, “Standard”, or “Business”.

• Software Features means functions of Discourse and Discourse Plugins described in the Documentation.

• Special Data Regulations means laws and regulations that impose special requirements on the collection, storage, processing, or transmission of data about particular classes of people or particularly sensitive kinds of data about people. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act, and European Union General Data Protection Regulation rules about special categories of personal data are some Special Data Regulations. Laws that apply to data just because they relate to specific identifiable people, such as GDPR rules about “personal data” more generally or California Consumer Privacy Act rules about “personal information” more generally, are not Special Data Regulations.

• Use of Customer’s Forum at Customer’s Own Risk means:

  • use of Customer’s Forum in breach of this agreement

  • use of Customer’s Forum with changes, additions, or in combination with other software, systems, or data, in a way that infringes someone else’s Intellectual Property Right or breaks the law, where use without would not

  • unauthorized use of Customer’s Forum with Customer Access Credentials

• Use Limits means numeric limits on technical aspects of Customer’s Forum agreed on the Signup Form, such as amount of data storage space and visitors per Service Month.

• Users means users of Customer’s Forum, both Customer Personnel and others.