Terms of Service

HiveBear is an open-source desktop application, command-line tool, and peer-to-peer mesh network for distributed AI inference, operated by Beckham Labs LLC (“we”, “us”, “our”). These terms govern your use of the HiveBear software, the hivebear.com website, and the coordination service that helps mesh peers find one another (together, the “Service”).

By creating an account, installing the software, or joining the mesh, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

The HiveBear client is released under the MIT licence. That licence governs your rights to the source code, and nothing in these terms restricts the rights it grants you. These terms apply to the hosted parts of the Service: your account, the website, and the coordination server.

• You must provide an accurate email address and keep your credentials secure. You are responsible for activity under your account.
• You must be old enough to form a binding contract where you live.
• You can participate in the mesh without an account, using only a cryptographic key pair.
• You may delete your account at any time by contacting us. We may suspend accounts that breach these terms.

HiveBear’s mesh lets participating devices share spare compute so that models too large for one machine can run across several. Contributing is optional and you control when it runs.

• Peers are not vetted. The mesh is made up of other people’s machines. Do not send anything through it that you would not be comfortable being seen by a third party.
• Results are not guaranteed. Peers can disappear mid-request, return slow results, or return wrong ones.
• Contributing uses your resources. If you enable contribution, HiveBear uses your CPU, GPU, memory, bandwidth and electricity. You are responsible for any costs that follow, including metered bandwidth.
• You must not use the mesh to attack, overload, deanonymize, or gain unauthorized access to other peers.

You agree not to use the Service to:

• break the law, or help anyone else do so;
• generate or distribute material that sexually exploits children, incites violence, or facilitates serious harm;
• infringe someone else’s intellectual property or privacy;
• probe, scan, or disrupt the coordination service or other peers’ machines;
• resell or redistribute mesh capacity contributed by others as if it were your own service.

You keep ownership of your prompts, outputs, and anything else you create with HiveBear. Chat history is stored locally on your device and is not sent to us. When a request is served over the mesh, the data needed to compute it is transmitted to the peers serving that request.

Model outputs can be wrong, biased, or unsuitable. Check anything you intend to rely on.

Paid tiers, where offered, are billed in advance through our payment processor. Fees are non-refundable except where required by law. You can cancel at any time and keep access until the end of the period you have paid for. We will give reasonable notice before changing prices.

The Service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We do not promise any particular uptime, mesh capacity, or throughput, and we may change or discontinue parts of the Service. We will try to give notice of material changes.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Beckham Labs LLC is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data, or goodwill. Our total liability for any claim relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or USD 100.

Some jurisdictions do not allow these limits, in which case they apply to you only as far as the law permits.

We may update these terms. If a change is material we will post notice on this page and update the effective date above. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the revised terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Disputes will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Texas, and you and we consent to their jurisdiction.

Questions about these terms: legal@hivebear.com