Licensing
When a licence key expires
What stops, what does not, and what happens to the data.
Updated:
Nothing expires in the edition you run for free: no trial, no subscription and no deadline. An instance installed today keeps working whether or not this company still exists, and each released version becomes Apache 2.0 four years after its release. This article is about the one thing that does have an expiry date: a Pro licence key.
The free edition does not expire
There is no account with us to lapse. The software reads no licence when none is configured, contacts nothing, and continues exactly as installed.
When a Pro key lapses
A key carries an expiry date, verified offline against a public key held in the binary. It keeps working for a further 7 days after that date rather than cutting out the moment it passes: a renewal that arrives late must not take a feature away mid-call.
After the grace period the Pro features stop and the instance behaves as Community. Nothing else changes.
The data is never held
Mailboxes, files, calendars and the database are on the server of whoever runs the instance, in their own storage. A licence key unlocks features; it has no ability to withhold data, lock an export or suspend a mailbox, and losing one does not put anything at risk.