Sift - End User License Agreement
Copyright (c) 2026 Burke Designs LLC. All rights reserved.
Version 0.1.0 - Effective date: October 28, 2026
In plain language: by installing or using Sift you are agreeing to these terms.
If you do not agree, do not install or use Sift, and delete any copy you have.
The short version (this summary is for convenience; the numbered sections below
are what count): you may use Sift on your own computers, but you do not own it
and may not copy, resell, take apart or rebuild it. Your files and recordings
stay on your computers. Use remote control, the agent and transcription only
where you have the right to, because you are responsible for what you do with
them. Sift comes as it is, without guarantees, and our liability is limited.
Disputes are settled by individual arbitration, not in court or in class
actions (section 17).
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1. WHO THIS AGREEMENT IS BETWEEN
This End User License Agreement ("Agreement") is between you and Burke Designs
LLC ("Burke Designs", "we", "us"). "You" means the person installing or using
the Software or, if you accept on behalf of a company or other organization,
that organization; in that case you confirm you have authority to bind it.
"Software" means the application called Sift (also known as Desktop Search, app
ID biz.burkedesigns.desktopsearch), version 0.1.0 and any update, model, codec,
file or documentation we provide with it or for it, for macOS 14 or later on
Apple Silicon and for Windows 10 and 11 (x64).
2. LICENSE GRANT
The Software is licensed, not sold. Subject to this Agreement, Burke Designs
grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable,
revocable license to install and use the Software in object-code form on
computers that you own or control, for your own use [or, for organizations, for
the internal use of your organization].
[FEES: If the Software is paid or offered as a trial, insert here: the price,
what a purchase covers (for example number of users or computers), trial
length, renewal and refund terms. If it is free, state that it is provided free
of charge and that we may introduce paid features later with notice.]
3. OWNERSHIP
Burke Designs and its licensors own all rights, title and interest in and to
the Software, including its source and object code, AI models and model
weights, the PopRDP and PopCodec codecs and protocols, file and network
formats, designs, user interface, documentation, and the names and logos Sift
and Burke Designs. All rights not expressly granted to you in this Agreement
are reserved, and no license is granted by implication or estoppel. Nothing in
this Agreement gives you any right to use our trademarks.
If you send us suggestions, ideas or other feedback about the Software, you
grant Burke Designs a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free right to
use it for any purpose without obligation or payment to you.
4. RESTRICTIONS
Except where applicable law expressly allows it despite this restriction, and
except as section 5 allows for third-party and open-source components, you must
not, and must not let anyone else:
(a) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise try to derive the
source code, models, model weights, algorithms, or file or network
protocols of the Software;
(b) modify, adapt, translate or make derivative works of the Software;
(c) copy the Software, except as needed to install and use it under this
Agreement and to keep a reasonable backup;
(d) rent, lease, lend, sell, sublicense, distribute or otherwise make the
Software available to others, including as a hosted or shared service;
(e) remove, alter or obscure any copyright, trademark or other notice in the
Software;
(f) get around, disable or interfere with any license check, update
mechanism, encryption, pairing or other security measure of the Software;
(g) use the Software, or any part of it, to build or train a competing
product or service; or
(h) use the Software in breach of any law or of any third party's rights.
5. THIRD-PARTY AND OPEN-SOURCE COMPONENTS
The Software includes components owned by others, which are licensed to you
under their own terms, not under this Agreement. For those components, their
license terms take precedence over this Agreement, and nothing in this
Agreement limits any right those licenses give you. Their license texts and
notices are included with the Software [location: for example the "Licenses"
folder in the app, or Help > Third-Party Notices]. They include:
- Electron and Chromium; electron-updater; Bun; marked; DOMPurify;
highlight.js; ONNX Runtime; qrcode; quicki-embed; lmdb;
- a standalone Python 3.12 with PyTorch, Core ML Tools, MLX and Hugging Face
libraries;
- speech and speaker-diarization models from Hugging Face and NVIDIA
(including Phonon-2, Nemotron 3 Diarization and Nemotron 3.5 ASR), and the
sherpa-onnx speaker model (TitaNet);
- LAME (MP3 encoder).
Some components, such as LAME, are licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public
License (LGPL). Section 4 does not apply to LGPL components: you may modify
them, and reverse engineer the Software to the extent the LGPL permits for
debugging such modifications. [Source-code offer for LGPL components, if
required: insert how to obtain it.]
Some AI models are licensed under terms that restrict how they or their output
may be used or require attribution. You agree to comply with those terms, which
are included with the Software.
6. USING REMOTE CONTROL, THE AGENT AND RECORDING FEATURES
Sift can control other computers you pair with it (screen, keyboard and mouse,
sound, clipboard and files), let an AI agent operate other apps on your
computer when you ask it to, and record, transcribe and identify the speakers
in meetings and other audio. You agree that:
(a) you will use remote control, sharing and the agent only on computers and
accounts that you own or are authorized to access and operate;
(b) you will not record, transcribe, identify the voices of or monitor anyone
without the notice and consent the law requires; recording, wiretap,
eavesdropping and biometric-privacy laws differ between places, some
require every person's consent, and complying with them is your
responsibility;
(c) you are responsible for everything done through the Software on your
computers or through your paired computers, including actions the agent
takes at your request, and for keeping your computers, pairing codes and
accounts secure; and
(d) search results, text recognition (OCR), transcripts, speaker
identification and the agent's actions are produced automatically and can
be wrong or incomplete. The agent can change, move or delete files and
act in other apps. Check results before you rely on them, supervise the
agent, and keep backups of anything important; you use these features at
your own risk; and
(e) you will not use the Software where a failure or mistake could lead to
death, injury, or serious physical, environmental or financial harm, or
as the sole basis for legal, medical, employment or similar decisions
about anyone.
7. SUPPORT AND THIRD-PARTY SERVICES
Burke Designs has no obligation to provide support, maintenance, updates or
fixes, or to keep any feature, the relay or any version of the Software
available, and may change, suspend or discontinue any of them at any time. The
Software relies on services run by others, including GitHub, Cloudflare, Google
and the providers of third-party models. Burke Designs does not control those
services and is not responsible for their availability, conduct or terms.
8. UPDATES
The Software may check for, download and install updates automatically,
including from GitHub, the service that hosts its releases. Updates may add,
change or remove features. This Agreement applies to every update unless the
update comes with different terms, in which case those terms apply. If a
computer you pair with runs an incompatible version, some features may not work
until both are updated.
9. PRIVACY
The Software indexes, searches and processes your files, images and audio, and
runs its AI models, on your own computers. Burke Designs does not receive your
files, search queries, recordings or transcripts.
To help your computers find each other and pair, and to search and share
between them, the Software connects to a relay run by Burke Designs on
Cloudflare. Connections between your computers are peer to peer and end-to-end
encrypted, and anything passed through the relay is sealed end to end so that
the relay cannot read it. The relay does see connection metadata: hashed device
addresses, connection times, amounts of data sent and IP addresses. The
Software also asks public STUN servers run by Cloudflare and Google for each
computer's internet address, and those providers see that request and your IP
address. Checking for and downloading updates exposes your IP address to
GitHub.
10. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND
"AS AVAILABLE", WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, AND YOU USE
IT AT YOUR OWN RISK. BURKE DESIGNS AND ITS LICENSORS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES,
CONDITIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY AND QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND ANY
WARRANTY THAT THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, SECURE OR FREE OF
HARMFUL CODE, WILL NOT LOSE OR DAMAGE DATA, WILL BE COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR
COMPUTERS OR OTHER SOFTWARE, OR THAT ANY RESULT, TRANSCRIPT OR AGENT ACTION
WILL BE CORRECT, OR THAT THE RELAY OR ANY THIRD-PARTY SERVICE WILL BE
AVAILABLE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION FROM BURKE DESIGNS CREATES ANY WARRANTY NOT
EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS AGREEMENT.
11. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW:
(a) BURKE DESIGNS, ITS AFFILIATES, MEMBERS, MANAGERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS,
SUPPLIERS AND LICENSORS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OR
CORRUPTION OF DATA OR FILES, LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, BUSINESS, SAVINGS
OR GOODWILL, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, SECURITY BREACH, OR COST OF
SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SOFTWARE, THE RELAY
OR THIS AGREEMENT, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY AND EVEN IF THE
DAMAGE WAS FORESEEABLE;
(b) THEY WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANYTHING DONE THROUGH REMOTE CONTROL OR THE
AGENT, OR FOR ANY RECORDING OR TRANSCRIPTION YOU MAKE, OR FOR THIRD-PARTY
COMPONENTS, MODELS OR SERVICES;
(c) THEIR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS TOGETHER ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED
TO THE SOFTWARE OR THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID
BURKE DESIGNS FOR THE SOFTWARE IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING
RISE TO THE FIRST CLAIM, OR, IF YOU PAID NOTHING, US$10; AND
(d) THESE LIMITS APPLY WHATEVER THE LEGAL THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT INCLUDING
NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE), AND EVEN IF A REMEDY FAILS OF
ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. THEY ARE AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THE BARGAIN, WITHOUT
WHICH BURKE DESIGNS WOULD NOT PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE.
Any claim you have arising out of or related to the Software or this Agreement
must be brought within one year after it arises, or it is permanently barred,
to the extent the law allows this limit.
Some places do not allow certain warranties to be disclaimed or certain
liability to be limited, so some of sections 10 and 11 may not apply to you.
Nothing in this Agreement excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded
or limited by law, such as liability for death or personal injury caused by
negligence, or for fraud.
12. INDEMNITY
To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify and hold harmless
Burke Designs and its affiliates, members, managers, employees, agents and
licensors from and against any claim, demand, loss, damage, liability, fine,
penalty, cost or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or
related to: your use or misuse of the Software; anything done through your
computers, your paired computers or the agent; your files, recordings and
transcripts; your breach of this Agreement; or your violation of any law or of
anyone's rights, including by using remote control, the agent, recording,
transcription or voice recognition without the required authorization or
consent. Burke Designs may take control of the defense of any such claim at
your expense, and you will cooperate with it. You will not settle any such
claim without our written consent.
13. TERMINATION
This Agreement lasts until it ends. It ends automatically and immediately,
without notice, if you breach it, and you may end it at any time by
uninstalling the Software. Burke Designs may suspend or end your license, or
block a device from the relay, at any time, for any reason or no reason, with
or without notice. When it ends, your license ends: you must stop using the
Software, uninstall it and delete all copies in your possession or control, and
on request confirm in writing that you have done so. Ending this Agreement does
not entitle you to any refund except where the law requires one. Sections 3, 4,
5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 15 to 18 survive termination, together with any
other term that by its nature should survive.
14. EXPORT COMPLIANCE
The Software contains encryption and may be subject to export-control and
sanctions laws, including those of the United States. You must not export,
re-export or use the Software in breach of those laws, including in an
embargoed country or by a person on a restricted-party list, and you confirm
that you are not such a person and are not located in such a country.
15. CHANGES TO THESE TERMS
We may change this Agreement at any time. We will show you the new terms in the
Software or with an update, and they apply from the date shown on them. If you
do not agree to them, stop using the Software and uninstall it. Continuing to
use it after that date means you accept the new terms. Changes do not apply to
a dispute that arose before they took effect.
16. GOVERNING LAW AND REMEDIES
This Agreement and any dispute arising out of or related to it or to the
Software are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United
States, and applicable United States federal law, without regard to its
conflict-of-law rules. Subject to section 17, the state courts located in
Loudoun County, Virginia and the federal courts for the Eastern District of
Virginia have exclusive jurisdiction, and you consent to their personal
jurisdiction and venue. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the
International Sale of Goods does not apply.
You agree that a breach of sections 3, 4 or 6 would cause Burke Designs
irreparable harm for which money would not be an adequate remedy, so Burke
Designs may seek an injunction or other equitable relief in any court of
competent jurisdiction, without posting a bond, in addition to any other
remedy. If Burke Designs has to take action to enforce this Agreement and wins,
you will pay its reasonable legal fees and costs, to the extent the law allows.
If you are a consumer, nothing in this Agreement takes away any protection or
right that the mandatory law of the country where you live gives you.
17. DISPUTE RESOLUTION BY ARBITRATION
Please read this section carefully: it affects your rights. Except for claims
in small-claims court and claims for injunctive relief under section 16, any
dispute between you and Burke Designs arising out of or related to this
Agreement or the Software will be resolved by final and binding arbitration
administered by National Arbitration and Mediation ("NAM") under its
Comprehensive Dispute Resolution Rules and Procedures and, where applicable,
its Mass Filing procedures, then in effect, before a single arbitrator. The
Federal Arbitration Act governs this section. The arbitration will take place
in Leesburg, Virginia 20175, or by video or written submissions, unless the
arbitrator decides otherwise. Before starting arbitration, you agree to email a
written description of the dispute to wesley@burkedesigns.biz and try in good
faith to resolve it with us for 60 days.
YOU AND BURKE DESIGNS EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND TO TAKE PART IN
A CLASS, COLLECTIVE OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION OR ARBITRATION. Disputes will be
resolved only on an individual basis. If this class-action waiver is found
unenforceable for a claim, that claim will be heard in court, not in
arbitration. You may opt out of this section by emailing
wesley@burkedesigns.biz within 30 days after you first accept this Agreement,
stating your name and that you opt out of arbitration.
18. GENERAL
(a) Entire agreement. This Agreement, together with the third-party licenses
in section 5, is the entire agreement between you and Burke Designs about
the Software and replaces any earlier understanding, representation or
agreement. Any different or additional terms you propose are rejected.
(b) Severability. If any part of this Agreement is found unenforceable, it
will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted, or modified to the
minimum extent needed to make it enforceable, and the rest of the
Agreement stays in effect.
(c) No waiver. Not enforcing a part of this Agreement is not a waiver of the
right to enforce it later. A waiver is effective only in writing signed
by Burke Designs.
(d) Assignment. You may not assign or transfer this Agreement or your
license, by operation of law or otherwise, without our written consent;
any attempt to do so is void. Burke Designs may assign or transfer it
without your consent, for example as part of a merger, acquisition or
sale of its business or assets.
(e) Force majeure. Burke Designs is not responsible for any failure or delay
caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including failures of the
internet, hosting or relay providers.
(f) Relationship. Nothing in this Agreement creates a partnership, agency or
employment relationship. There are no third-party beneficiaries except
Burke Designs' licensors and the persons protected by sections 11 and 12.
(g) Interpretation. Headings and the plain-language summary at the top are
for convenience only and do not affect the meaning of this Agreement.
"Including" means "including without limitation". If this Agreement is
translated, the English version controls.
(h) Notices. Send notices and questions about this Agreement to Burke Designs
LLC at wesley@burkedesigns.biz. We may give you notices in the Software,
with an update, or by email if you have given us one.
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Burke Designs LLC - wesley@burkedesigns.biz