Support

Saphira Linux is an open-source operating system.

AKADATA LIMITED does not sell licences to use Saphira Linux. There is no subscription required to keep using it, and no hosted control plane required to keep it working.

There is no SaaS edition. There will not be a SaaS edition. There is no “Saphira-as-a-Service”, and there is no intention to turn the project into an “as-a-Service” product.

The software is not the product being rented to you. The work is the expertise required to design, install, integrate, repair, document and support real infrastructure.

We charge for engineering, implementation, management and support. We do not rent the software back to you.

General support is chargeable. Email support, investigation time, configuration review and remote assistance may be chargeable. Support does not become free merely because the software is open source.

The exact work and responsibility should be agreed before work starts. No prices are implied here.

Documentation is free; engineering time is not.

These remain free and are part of the project:

• Reading the documentation
• Downloading Saphira Linux
• Using the package repository
• Submitting a bug report

Asking AKADATA to investigate a specific machine, network, mail problem or configuration is support work. That is where a paid engagement begins, not the project.

Free software means freedom to use the software. It does not mean somebody else is obliged to operate your infrastructure for free.

• No automatic SLA

  Response times, availability, out-of-hours work and restoration targets exist only when specifically agreed. Writing to AKADATA does not create an emergency-support contract by default.

• No guaranteed fix

  Paid support buys engineering time and responsibility for the agreed work. It is not a promise that every hardware, upstream software, ISP, vendor or third-party defect can be fixed.

Mail work may include DNS, forward and reverse DNS, MX, SPF, DKIM, DMARC, DNSSEC, relay policy and TLS. No deliverability or blacklist-immunity guarantee is implied.

Configurations, passwords, DNS records, databases and systems created for a customer remain their infrastructure. AKADATA documents and hands over work rather than making continued access depend on AKADATA.

AKADATA should be removable from the relationship without making the customer's infrastructure stop working. Paid management may continue for as long as it is useful, not because the system has been engineered to require it.

• Access and credentials

  Remote access is only used where required and authorised for the engagement. Credentials should not become a permanent hidden AKADATA back door.

• Backups and destructive work

  Before migrations, upgrades or recovery operations, responsibility for backups and recovery points needs to be agreed. That matters particularly for databases, mail and storage.

• Upstream and vendor boundaries

  AKADATA can diagnose and work around third-party faults, but cannot make NVIDIA, an ISP, a hypervisor vendor, a hardware manufacturer or an upstream project change their software or service.

• Supported versions and old systems

  Support for obsolete releases or heavily modified systems can still be possible, though investigation may take longer and may reasonably become migration work.

• On-site, remote and broader infrastructure

  AKADATA support can extend to physical servers, switching, routing, hypervisors and the surrounding environment — not merely what happens inside the Saphira VM.

Genuine bug reports are appreciated. Reproducible reports should include the release, component, relevant logs and enough evidence to reproduce the fault.

There is no bug bounty programme. AKADATA LIMITED does not pay bounties merely for reporting defects.

Security reports are not support tickets. They follow their own path via the security contact, and the rules for doing so are set out in the Responsible Disclosure policy. Responsible disclosure is welcome; vulnerability reports do not create a bounty or an entitlement to consultancy.

Bug reports help improve the project. They do not create a paid support entitlement in either direction.

The project contains original AKADATA/Saphira code and third-party software. Original code may be MIT licensed where declared; third-party packages retain their own licences. The distribution therefore contains mixed licences.

Consult package metadata and source licensing for individual components.

AKADATA LIMITED does not sell Saphira Linux as a subscription and does not operate a SaaS trap around it.

We do not believe adding “as a Service” to ordinary infrastructure makes the customer better served. Where AKADATA is paid, it is for engineering, implementation, management, support and responsibility for work performed.

The machine, configuration and data remain real infrastructure, not a licence switch somebody else can turn off.