How to license an application developed in C#

Question

Hi,

I am developing a software using C Sharp 2008 Express Edition and i am almost done with it.

Now I need to license the software (commercial use) I am very new to licensing softwares.

Can u suggest me a good licensing tool ?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There are many good licensing libraries (for example, http://ellipter.com/) available for generally low prices, most of which implement the standard try/buy features: limited trial periods, limited number of trial uses, license keys with encoded information, etc.

Answer 2

You don't need a license to be able to distribute any software you write, but you should have something that says what rights your users have.

Are you asking about how your users install your software?. If that's the case you can use the built in ClickOnce mechanism to build the installation program, or use one of the many other installation systems out there. Each has advantages and disadvantages - you need to decide what you want the installer to do and choose one that meets these requirements.

Or are you asking about a mechanism to track who has your software installed or a way to prevent unauthorised users installing your software? If that's the case then building your own is probably a bad idea as you'll hit problems that others have already solved. Again there are many systems out there that will help you with this, though as before each has plus and minus points which you need to be aware of. Without knowing what you want it's not really possible to advise you.

Answer 3

The language that you wrote your software in has no bearing on the license you would choose.

If you want others to be able to modify and distribute the code as well as the license, choose something from the Open Source Initiative:

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category

Read through a couple of them to get an idea of the kinds of things you should consider when licensing software (commercial or otherwise).

If you want to force others to share any modifications back with you, the standard license is the GPL.

If you do want your users to have a maximum of freedom (my words--maybe controversial) then choose something like Apache 2.0 or BSD.

Here is a link to the Microsoft Word license to give you an idea of the other side of the fence (definitely no sharing):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4285D6F7-DFDD-44A6-A21D-8E9899082B15&displaylang=en