Commercial Licensing

How Stardetha commercial licensing works without breaking stored translations.

Backend scope (v0.24.3): Stardetha One is the customer default; legacy mode requires an explicit IST_LICENSE_BACKEND=legacy override. The legacy behavior below does not describe Stardetha One. For One configuration, strict signature checks, a maximum 72-hour signed lifetime, target-language/memory grants, online character authorization, and licensed package updates, see Stardetha One Integration.

Legacy licensing backend

Instant Language Switcher v0.21.0 uses Stardetha Licensing Manager v1.1.0 as a first-party standalone licensing service. It no longer requires Easy Digital Downloads Software Licensing or WooCommerce.

The plugin code remains licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later. A Stardetha commercial entitlement controls authorized site activations, premium automated translation operations, licensed software updates, commercial support and future hosted Stardetha services.

Architecture

Customer WordPress site
    Instant Language Switcher v0.21.0
              │
              │ HTTPS REST
              ▼
stardetha.com
    Stardetha Licensing Manager v1.1.0
              │
              ├─ customer / order records
              ├─ license generation
              ├─ activation limits
              ├─ signed entitlement responses
              ├─ release registry
              └─ secure update downloads

Your existing PayFast/PayGate integration is independent of this client plugin. After a payment has been verified server-side, it can notify Stardetha Licensing Manager to issue the appropriate license.

What an active license controls

An active entitlement is required for automatic provider generation, Translate Entire Site, rendered-site discovery, premium queue execution/retries, Visual Editor automatic discovery/translation and licensed WordPress updates.

Existing locally stored translations and the public language switcher remain available if a commercial entitlement later expires. The licensing layer does not delete translated content.

Connectivity grace period

After a previously successful validation, a temporary network/licensing-server outage can use the cached entitlement for up to 14 days. The grace period applies only to connectivity failures. An explicit expired, revoked, disabled or invalid response from Stardetha does not receive outage grace.

Security model

The customer key is masked in the admin interface and encrypted in the WordPress options table using installation-specific WordPress key material. License requests use HTTPS with certificate verification. Stardetha Licensing Manager signs entitlement/update responses using Ed25519 or RSA when available; v0.21.0 pins the server key identifier and verifies signatures locally when the relevant PHP crypto extension is available.