By Buğra Ömer Aydemir · Updated 15 October 2026

Software licensing glossary

The terms used in Carcha Seal's documentation and guides, in one place.

Terms

License key
What the customer types, for example LK-7Q2M-9XPA-K4TD-W8NE. Crockford Base32, so I, L, O and U never appear; input ignores case, spaces and hyphens. The server stores only a SHA-256 hash.
License
What a customer buys: a key, a policy, seats, an optional expiry, an optional end of updates, features and a status (active, suspended or revoked).
Policy
The defaults for new licenses of a product: seats, duration, end of updates, check-in interval, offline grace, offline activation and features.
Seat
One activated computer. Activating again on the same computer reuses its seat; deactivating frees it.
Node-locked license
A license that works only on the computers it was activated on. Carcha Seal binds each lease to one computer.
Floating (concurrent) license
A license that limits how many copies run at the same time, on any computer. Not in Carcha Seal version 1.
Lease
The signed statement the server returns on every activation and check-in: a compact JWS signed with Ed25519, naming one product, one device and a check-in deadline. The app verifies it offline.
Device fingerprint
A SHA-256 hash of the operating system's machine ID and the product code. The raw ID never leaves the computer.
Check-in
The app asking the server again and receiving a new lease; every 72 hours on the default policy.
Offline grace
How long the app keeps working after a missed check-in; 7 days on the default policy.
End of updates (maintenance)
The date after which a license no longer covers new versions, if the policy tracks it.
Feature
A named capability a license can include, for example export-pdf.
Feature key
A secret key per feature. Code or data encrypted with it opens only on a computer whose lease includes that feature.
Offline activation
Activation with files for computers that never reach the server: a request file, a license file and, to free the seat, a deactivation file.
JWKS and kid
The server publishes its verification keys as a JSON Web Key Set at /v1/keys. Each lease names its key with kid, the RFC 7638 thumbprint, so keys rotate without an app update.
clock_suspect
The SDK state when the computer's clock moved back more than a day or a lease seems to come from the future; paid features stop until an online check.

Sources