DRAFT — for attorney review. This page is a plain-language working draft. It has not been reviewed by a lawyer and is not yet legally binding. Bracketed items like [Sturdyhaus legal entity] are placeholders to be confirmed before publication. Nothing here is legal advice. Final terms may differ.

End-User License Agreement

Product: Punchwell, by [Sturdyhaus legal entity] (“we,” “us,” “Sturdyhaus”)
Last updated: [DATE]

This Agreement covers your use of the Punchwell plugin software (the “Software”) and, if you buy one, your Punchwell license key (the “License Key”). Please read it alongside our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

The short version, up front:

The code is GPL. The Punchwell plugin is free software licensed under the GNU General Public License. You keep every freedom the GPL gives you — to use, study, modify, and redistribute the code.
What you pay for is the License Key, not permission to use the code. The Key is your entitlement to automatic updates and support for a term, for a number of sites.
We do not, and cannot, restrict your GPL rights to the code. This Agreement only sets the terms of the service the Key unlocks (updates and support). It does not take away anything the GPL grants.

The rest of this page explains that in detail.

1. Two different things: the code, and the License Key

It helps to keep these separate, because they’re governed differently.

1.1 The Software (the code) is GPL.
The Punchwell plugin and its add-ons are licensed to everyone under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later (“GPL”). Punchwell is a maintained, independent fork of GPL-licensed software, and we distribute it under the same license. Where this Agreement and the GPL ever conflict as to your rights in the code, the GPL governs.

1.2 The License Key is a paid service entitlement.
When you purchase Punchwell Pro, you receive a License Key. The Key is what entitles you to:

Automatic updates to the Pro software through your WordPress dashboard, for the term of your license; and
Support from the people who maintain the code, for the term of your license.

The Key is governed by this Agreement and our Terms of Service — not by the GPL. The GPL covers code; it does not cover a paid updates-and-support service, and it does not require us to provide that service for free.

1.3 Why it’s set up this way.
This is the standard, well-understood model for professional WordPress plugins. The GPL guarantees your freedom in the code; the license fee funds the ongoing maintenance, security work, updates, and support that keep the code worth running. You are paying for service and access over time, not for permission to use software you already have the right to use.

2. Your GPL rights (these are not restricted)

Because the Software is GPL, and for as long as you have a lawful copy of it, you may:

Use it on as many sites as you want, for any purpose, with no per-seat or per-employee fee.
Study and modify the source code.
Redistribute the code, modified or not, under the same GPL terms.

Nothing in this Agreement removes, limits, or charges for any of those rights. In particular:

We do not lock the code to a License Key. The plugin runs without a Key. A Key turns on automatic Pro updates and support — it is not a technical gate that disables the software you’ve installed.
If your license lapses, you keep the plugin and all your data. Updates and support stop, but the code you already have keeps working, and your employee, attendance, leave, and payroll records stay in your own WordPress database. (See §7.)
We will not use this Agreement to claw back GPL freedoms. Any term here that would purport to do so is, to that extent, unenforceable and should be read as not applying to the GPL-covered code.

Heads up: redistributing the Software is your GPL right, but the License Key, the Punchwell and Sturdyhaus names and logos, and our update servers are not GPL. Sharing the code is fine; sharing or reselling a Key — or implying your redistribution is official Punchwell — is not (see §3 and §5).

3. What the License Key permits — and its limits

3.1 Sites. Each License Key is valid for the number of sites in the plan you bought:

Pro — 1 site: updates and support for one (1) production WordPress site.
Pro — 5 sites: updates and support for up to five (5) production WordPress sites.

Pricing is per site, never per seat — unlimited employees on every plan. “Site” generally means a distinct WordPress install on its own domain; staging or development copies of a licensed site are not separately counted, within reason. [Confirm exact site-counting definition — e.g. treatment of subdomains, staging, and multisite — with counsel.]

Note: Punchwell is not designed for WordPress Multisite. [Confirm how, if at all, multisite is licensed.]

3.2 Term and renewal. A license runs for the term you purchased (typically one year) and may renew per our Terms of Service. When the term ends, the update and support service ends — see §7. Billing, renewal, and refund terms live in the Terms of Service and Refund Policy.

3.3 What the Key is not for. The Key authorizes you to receive updates and support for your licensed sites. It is not a product to be resold, sublicensed, shared, or published. Activating one Key across more sites than your plan covers, or distributing your Key to others, is outside what the Key permits — even though the underlying code remains freely shareable under the GPL.

3.4 Updates may also flow through WordPress.org. The free community version of Punchwell is distributed on WordPress.org and updates through the normal WordPress mechanism, no Key required. The Key adds Pro features, Pro updates, and support. [VERIFY — confirm the live Pro update-delivery channel and how the Key authenticates to it before publication; do not describe automatic Pro updates as live until confirmed.]

4. Support

4.1 What support covers. With an active license, you receive support from the people who maintain Punchwell — help with installation, configuration, the office-IP lock and other features, bug reports, and migration questions. [Define the support channel(s) and any response-time target — e.g. email support, business-day response — and replace this sentence.]

4.2 What support does not cover. Support does not include custom development, third-party plugin or theme conflicts beyond reasonable diagnosis, server administration, or work on heavily modified copies of the code. We may decline support for sites running modified Software where the modification is the cause of the issue. [Confirm scope with counsel.]

4.3 Modified code stays your right. You’re free to modify the GPL code (§2). Doing so doesn’t breach this Agreement — but we may not be able to support a modified copy, and modifications are your responsibility.

5. Trademarks (separate from the GPL code)

The GPL covers our code. It does not grant rights to our brand.

“Punchwell,” “Sturdyhaus,” and our logos are [trademarks/branding] of [Sturdyhaus legal entity]. If you exercise your GPL right to redistribute the Software, you may do so under the GPL, but you may not:

present your distribution as official, endorsed, or supported by us;
use our names or logos in a way that suggests affiliation or endorsement; or
imply that your copy receives Punchwell updates or support.

You may, of course, state factually that your software is based on or derived from Punchwell (that’s accurate, and the GPL contemplates it). [Confirm trademark / nominative-use language with counsel.]

About the original plugin. Punchwell is an independent, third-party maintained fork of the GPL-licensed “WP Human Resource Management” plugin. Sturdyhaus is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by wpspear, weDevs, the original author, or any prior maintainer. That name is referenced descriptively only, to identify the software lineage. All third-party names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.

6. Third-party and open-source components

Punchwell bundles other open-source libraries, each under its own license (for example, the data-layer and date libraries the plugin depends on). Those licenses continue to govern those components. Nothing in this Agreement overrides them. A list of included components and their licenses is available on request [or: see /legal/licenses/ — confirm whether this page exists].

No call-home. Punchwell does not phone home, does not transmit your employee or attendance data to us or any third party, and contains no outbound network calls beyond optional, clearly-identified content (such as optional YouTube tutorial embeds and Gravatar avatars, which are standard WordPress behavior). Your data stays on your own server. See our Privacy Policy.

7. What happens when your license ends

When your license expires or is cancelled:

The plugin keeps working. The code is GPL and already installed; it does not stop functioning, and no feature is remotely switched off.
Your data stays yours. Every employee, attendance, leave, PTO, and payroll record remains in your WordPress database. Nothing is deleted, locked, or held hostage.
Automatic Pro updates and support stop. You will no longer receive new Pro updates (including security and compatibility updates) or support until you renew.

Because of that last point, we recommend keeping a license active so you continue to get security and compatibility fixes — but the choice, and your data, are yours. This is the practical meaning of GPL: you can never be stranded by us the way the original abandoned plugin stranded its users.

8. Warranty disclaimer

The Software is provided under the GPL, and consistent with it, the Software is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

We work hard to make Punchwell secure and reliable — it is security-audited and built to be PHP 8 / WordPress 7 / MySQL 8 clean — but we do not promise the Software is error-free, uninterrupted, or that any specific feature (including the office-IP lock or GPS geofence) will prevent all time theft, buddy punching, or unauthorized access. Location and network controls are deterrents and enforcement tools, not guarantees; for example, GPS location can be spoofed. You are responsible for configuring, testing, and operating the Software for your own situation, and for your own legal and compliance obligations (including employment, wage-and-hour, and data-privacy law).

[Counsel: confirm the warranty disclaimer aligns with the GPL’s own disclaimer and with mandatory consumer-protection law in target jurisdictions.]

9. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, [Sturdyhaus legal entity] will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost wages, lost data, or business interruption, arising out of or relating to the Software or this Agreement, even if advised of the possibility.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability relating to the Software and this Agreement will not exceed the amount you paid us for your License Key in the [twelve (12) months] before the claim arose. Where you obtained the Software for free, our liability is limited to the maximum extent the law allows.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you. [Counsel: confirm caps, carve-outs (e.g. for gross negligence / willful misconduct / death or personal injury / liability that cannot be excluded), and consistency with the GPL.]

10. General

10.1 Order of precedence. As to your rights in the code, the GPL controls. As to the License Key, updates, and support, this Agreement and the Terms of Service control. If a term here would conflict with the GPL over the code, the GPL wins and that term does not apply to the code.

10.2 Changes. We may update this Agreement. We’ll post the new version with a revised “Last updated” date, and material changes take effect per the Terms of Service. Changes never reduce the GPL rights you already have in code you already hold.

10.3 Governing law. This Agreement is governed by the laws of [jurisdiction], without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, except where mandatory local law applies to you. [Confirm governing-law and dispute-resolution clauses with counsel.]

10.4 Severability. If any part of this Agreement is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect, and the unenforceable part is limited only as much as necessary.

10.5 Contact. Questions about this Agreement: [legal/support contact email] · [Sturdyhaus legal entity], [registered address].

Punchwell is GPL software. Your purchase buys updates and support per site — it never buys away your freedom to use, study, change, or share the code.

Punchwell End-User License Agreement