Terms & refunds

Plain language, and short. Where it says an app does not promise something, that is deliberate rather than lawyerly hedging.

Who you are contracting with

When you buy or contribute, Polar is the merchant of record — they are the seller on your invoice, they handle payment and they remit the tax. These terms govern your use of the software itself.

Your licence

The apps come in two shapes, and the licence differs:

NameGnome. A free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the app on your own Macs. Payment is voluntary — pay what you want, from CHF 9. A supporter key turns off the monthly support notice on up to three of your own Macs — that is its only function. The key is delivered by Polar after purchase.
Paid apps (Photosteward, when it ships). A one-time purchase for one person, usable on up to three of your own Macs, perpetual for the version you bought. The licence key is delivered by Polar after purchase.
Perron. A free, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to use the app on your own Macs. Payment is voluntary. A supporter key silences the support reminder on up to three Macs — that is its only function.

What you may and may not do with the software

The apps are licensed, not sold. All rights not expressly granted above are reserved. The software, its name, its icons and this site remain my intellectual property, and a licence key grants the rights described here and nothing further.

You may not:

redistribute, resell, rent, lease or sublicense an app, or make it available to others as a service;
share, publish or resell a licence key, or use one on more Macs than the licence allows;
remove or alter copyright notices, or present the software as your own;
modify, decompile or reverse engineer the software, except to the extent that applicable law expressly permits it — Swiss copyright law allows decompilation for interoperability, and nothing here restricts that right.

Perron and NameGnome being free changes none of this: free to use is not the same as free to redistribute or resell.

If you materially breach these terms, the licence ends. Uninstalling the app is all that is required of you at that point.

Trials, reminders, and what happens after them

Paid apps have a free, full-featured trial; when it ends the app asks you to buy a licence before you can keep using it. Perron and NameGnome are not paid apps — they are free to use, and what changes over time is only whether they ask.

NameGnome, precisely. NameGnome is free to use, whole and forever — no account, no card, and renaming never stops. For the first 14 days from first launch nothing is asked at all. After that, once a month, a support notice stands in front of the folder and history panes until you dismiss it — one click — or enter a licence key; while it stands, your history and Undo keep working behind it, the app keeps renaming, and nothing is undone, moved or deleted on your behalf. Paying what you want, from CHF 9, turns the notice off. One licence covers three of your own Macs, which is the activation limit the key itself carries. A refund revokes that key through Polar, at which point the monthly notice returns; the app itself keeps working, and the licence field stays where it is, so buying again restores it.

Perron works differently and this is the important sentence: after its 14-day trial nothing is withheld, disabled, degraded or time-limited. The app adds one dismissible row asking you to support it, and continues to work exactly as before — whether or not you ever pay, and whether or not you dismiss it.

Refunds

Within 14 days of purchase you can have your money back — including voluntary contributions to Perron. No explanation needed.

How: reply to the order confirmation Polar sent you, or write to support — that email also links to your order, where you can find your licence key again. The refund is issued through Polar, who then return the payment by the same method you used; it can take a few days to appear. If you would rather not go through me, Polar is the seller on your invoice and their support can handle it directly.

If you are in the EU or EEA, your statutory right of withdrawal for digital content is separate from this policy and is handled at Polar's checkout. Nothing here takes away a right the law gives you.

A refund revokes the associated licence key. For Perron and NameGnome that means the support reminder comes back; the app itself keeps working.

Public transport information — please read this one

Perron shows departure times for Swiss public transport. That information does not originate with me: it comes from third parties through opentransportdata.swiss.

Times shown are estimates and may be delayed, cached, incomplete or unavailable. Services change, are re-routed and are cancelled without that always reaching the data in time. Perron is an informational convenience: do not rely on it for travel decisions — check official SBB information before you travel. I accept no responsibility for missed trains or connections, or for any loss arising from reliance on what the app displays.

No affiliation

Perron is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Schweizerische Bundesbahnen SBB, opentransportdata.swiss, or the Federal Office of Transport. Service designations such as IC, IR and S are used descriptively, to identify public transport services.

Services outside my control may change

The apps depend on services I do not run — the transport data service, Polar, update hosting. I cannot guarantee those stay available, free, or unchanged. If one goes away, the feature that depends on it may stop working, and in Perron's case the app may stop showing departures altogether.

No warranties

The apps are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, to the maximum extent permitted by law. They say what they do and are built carefully, but no software is free of error.

What each app does to your files differs enough that one sentence covering both would be wrong about one of them. NameGnome renames automatically — there is no preview step and it does not ask each time; that is the design. What it does not do is delete a file, move it out of its folder, or change anything inside it: every rename is recorded, and any of them can be undone in one click. Photosteward deletes nothing on its own — it reads and tags, and any deletion goes through macOS's own confirmation, which you have to answer.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, liability is limited to the amount you paid for the app in question, and I am not liable for indirect or consequential loss.

What that does not cover, because it cannot: nothing here excludes or limits liability for unlawful intent or gross negligence, for death or personal injury, or for anything else that may not be excluded under applicable law. Swiss law voids such exclusions in advance, and I would rather say so than claim otherwise.

Updates

Updates are delivered in-app via the Sparkle framework and are currently free for all customers of a purchased version. Perron asks before it starts checking automatically. An update check sends the app version and macOS version — see privacy.

Governing law

Swiss law applies. If you are a consumer, mandatory consumer protections of your country of residence — including where you may bring a claim — are unaffected by this, whatever it says.