I am currently creating a .NET based (website/system) solution for small IT companies and I am offering it in a self-hosted package, which means my clients are going to mainly install it on their own servers. How do I make sure my system is not being run except on one server per client and no body is illegally-copying it to other servers/machines?
+2
A:
The simplest way is with a legal license agreement (that is, one that you pay a lawyer who specialized in that sort of thing to write). Yes, there will be some people who will ignore that and run illegal copies anyway, but that's going to happen no matter what you do. You just need to concentrate on providing a good enough service (that is, sales and support) that people will want to pay for it.
Anything more than that, and you're just going to annoy legitimate users (which affects your ability to provide "good service").
Dean Harding
2010-09-02 00:51:44
Thanks, I totally agree with the "good enough service", do you know of a generic license agreement I can use? We are too small to afford a lawyer anyway.
a b
2010-09-02 00:53:38
You can find plenty of templates on the internet, but it doesn't cost a lot to get a lawyer to write one for you. Consider the fact that even if a lawyer charges $500 to write it, you've just spent *months* developing the software: how much did those months of development time cost you in terms of engineer's salary?
Dean Harding
2010-09-02 00:56:04