Licensing

Without a license

Opening and viewing data always works. No license, no account, no trial required — you can open FCS files, choose axes, and look at plots.

This is deliberate, and it stays true after a license expires: nobody should be locked out of work they have already done because a purchase order is slow.

What a license adds

Capability	What it covers
Editing an analysis	Creating and editing gates, compensation, and anything else that changes an analysis
Exporting results	CSV, PDF, figures, and the compensation matrix
AI-assisted gating	AI-1 and the AI copilot

Every paid tier grants all three. The tiers — Trial, Evaluation, Academic, Commercial, Enterprise — differ in term and terms, not in features.

Seat counts are recorded on the license but not enforced by the software.

Starting a trial

On first launch, the welcome dialog offers Start 30-day trial. One trial per installation; the option disappears once it has been used on that machine.

Installing a license file

You will receive a license file from us — a small signed .json file.

1. Help → License, or click Import license on the licensing banner.
2. Pick the file.
3. It is verified before it is stored, so a bad file never lands on disk. If the signature does not check out, you get an error rather than a silently broken install.

About the file extension

The extension is cosmetic — the app reads the contents and verifies the signature, not the name. .json is what we send, because browsers and mail clients handle it without renaming, but .cytogence-license is also accepted.

If you have an older build where the picker only shows .json files and yours has a different extension, renaming it to end in .json is safe and sufficient.

When a license expires

You keep full read access. Gating, export and AI stop, and the message you get names what was blocked and says the license needs renewing rather than implying we have never heard of you.

The licensing banner warns you before expiry, with enough lead time for an institution to actually process a renewal.

Moving to another machine

Help → License → Remove license detaches this installation. Install the same file on the new machine.

Data collection

Improving AI-1 from real gating decisions is opt-in and never opt-out, and the license records the policy. If you have not opted in, no gating data leaves your machine. Nothing is collected retroactively.

If the app says your clock looks wrong

Licenses are time-limited, so the app notices when the system clock has moved in a way that suggests tampering. If you see this and your clock genuinely was wrong (a dead CMOS battery, a VM restored from a snapshot), fix the clock and restart — if it persists, tell us.