Asp.net solution Licensing

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+1 Q:

Asp.net solution Licensing

Hi,

Im developing an asp.net mvc 2 project and I would like to implement the following licensing scheme:

Customers can buy the solution compiled or with the source code (the second option it will be more expensive). So if they buy the source code they can customize it as they need. But I would like them to pay for each copy of my software that they are running... for example if they install my solution in 2 servers they should pay 2 licenses.

The thing is, how can I achieve this if I give the source code? Some part should be compiled to make the license verification... What options do you recommend?

Investigating how different solutions implement this I found aspnetdotstorefront (http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com). This company has the same business model, they sell you the code but also sell licenses... so you can buy 5 licenses with the source code.

Does anyone know how they achieve this? In some way they are checking the licenses and they dont allow you to bypass that check, because if not everyone would buy 1 license and the source code, and then install in on all the servers they want.

Thanks in advance, Juan

+1 A:

The other answers seem to support this concept as well. Just look at the telerik licensing, there is no "security" if you pay for a license. It's more on the "honor code" idea. Then again, they are dealing with developers, so locking other developers out of your software can prove to be quite difficult... I think that's why they choose to "trust" their users.

You're not going to be able to show a user your source code, and still programmatically enforce licensing. Trust your users to do the right thing... you might have to account for "some" loss.

I realize this isn't an "answer" to your question, just an alternative.

rockinthesixstring 2010-10-19 21:49:17

+1 A:

The real question is is your software good enough to make major companies license it? When you also sell source code you are basically trusting companies to follow your licensing agreement. This works fine for major companies, but not if your not marketing to major players. Example: A college is not going to likely break federal copy write laws by using unlicensed versions of your software, but the other 98% of companies out there, especially smaller ones, would have no problem doing so.

Case in point: Microsoft sells Visual Studio 2010 for about 800 for professional. You can also get a academic license 100% free by joining web https://www.dreamspark.com/default.aspx. Now if you were to use the academic program to create commercial ASP.net software as a small company, it is EXTREMELY unlikely you will ever be caught. Microsoft however trusts that as a company, you will license the full product as you are legally obligated to do so. They also know that even a huge portion of the people using their software, use it illegally, there are so many commercial companies that will pay for it that it is worth the cost / benefit.

Chances are, you do not fall in that category of having so many companies who will pay for it, when the source could be found on any torrent site, so my personal suggestion is just sell licensed copies of the compiled coding, with an option to make custom builds for people.

Anthony Greco 2010-10-19 21:49:36

(Sorry to repeat comment, but its the same that for the previous answer) Thanks for the response, but... do you know how aspdotnetstorefront licensing works? Please look at http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/p-134-aspdotnetstorefront-multi-store.aspx they sell sourcecode and licences, do you think that they "trust" that customers will respect the license agreement? Its an ecommerce solution, probably the 90% of theirs customers are small companies that usually dont respect license agreements. Thanks again!

Juan 2010-10-20 12:18:23

Yes I would bet they go on a trust factor. first off, to even license a single copy would cost $3,500. Then the source is another 900, so to even have their source leak they already earned almost $4,500. Now keep in mind it is probably easy for them to detect fraud. They simply can spider google and other sites for common things in their source coding. Sure people can turn google off, but thats a ton of their traffic, so likely wont. I would assume they also commonly send out Cease and desist letters to anyone who is found running it on a domain not licensed.

Anthony Greco 2010-10-20 15:28:40

In the end, they likely are not protecting their coding at all, because in fact, if they provide full source, as is, there is no way to protect it. They also might provide "C# coding" that uses a protected DLL to handle a majority of the work. This way you can tweak the basics, yet their core coding you can't touch and stays protected. In the end, if you give source out, its always going to be a trust factor. I personally do not suggest it and spent the $900 on {smart assembly} to best protect my intellectual work

Anthony Greco 2010-10-20 15:30:42

+1 A:

You can't programatically enforce a license scheme that includes the source code that can be compiled into a working product. In such situations you have to rely on legal enforcement of such license agreements. You'll find however that since your source version is considerably more expensive that it will be purchased by larger companies that have license enforcement rules in place.

But the bottom line is, if you give your source away, you also give away control. Now that's not always a bad thing. Remember that your license is a tool to increase profits - nothing more. How would adding a license restriction to your source increase your profits? If the answer is "it can't" then don't worry about it.

For the binary protection check out DeployLX. It supports all the other runtime features that you desire.

Paul Alexander 2010-10-19 21:49:51

Thanks for the response, but... do you know how aspdotnetstorefront licensing works? Please look at http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/p-134-aspdotnetstorefront-multi-store.aspx they sell sourcecode and licences, do you think that they "trust" that customers will respect the license agreement? Its an ecommerce solution, probably the 90% of theirs customers are small companies that usually dont respect license agreements. Thanks again!

Juan 2010-10-20 12:17:44

Yep, looked into their tools when putting our e-commerce together. "small companies...dont respect license agreements" - which I think is partially true. It is true that they generally won't police themselves and are likely to install the software on more machines then the EULA strictly allows, however my experience shows that they are not likely to share source with another company. So the question then becomes - would you expect to sell such companies multiple copies of your software if they honored the EULA? Realistically - they would only need one license so don't worry about it.

Paul Alexander 2010-10-20 19:24:39

(continued) Your primary question must be "What will earn me the most money?" The companies using your software have no incentive to steal your source and try and re-sell it. They're hard at work on their own. If some unscrupulous part did purchase your source to try and resell, that's when you use legal license enforcement to recover all profits they made and shut them down. Licensing is a tricky subject - do what is best for your customers - not for you - and you'll do all right.

Paul Alexander 2010-10-20 19:27:02

Also, since aspdotnetstorefront is your reference model, you might try sending them an email to get their experience on the matter.

Paul Alexander 2010-10-20 20:36:20

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Asp.net solution Licensing

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