Licensing Framework
Licensing Framework
- Subject: Licensing Framework
- From: Greg Hulands <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 09:34:32 +1000
Good Morning List,
I am wanting to create an open licensing framework for cocoa developers
so that there is a free and comprehensive way for licensing our
software. Below are the following requirements I have set out so far:
1. Flexible licensing policies - Node Locked, User Locked, Floating
Network and Time Expiring.
2. "Domain Aware" - This is for applications that can load third party
bundles that may also want to have the ability to check to see if their
bundle is licensed properly. So there would be a License Registry that
holds all the licenses for the application and its bundles so that the
app, framework or bundle can see if it is licensed.
3. Must be secure in generating the license codes.
I have never really done anything in this domain before so I am looking
for some advice on what I should and should not do. The way I think is
the right way to generate the license codes is to use an algorithm that
takes a "Domain Code" for the plugin or application and it hashes the
DC into the code so that each plugin can have its own unique set of
license codes.
I have read through all the previous postings on the subject on
mamasam, but they all seem to turn out to "Node Locking is a bad idea."
I am making this framework to be flexible that developers can choose
the type of licensing policy they need, whether is be a demo license
the expiries after thirty days or whether only a single user can use
the license. I don't want to get this thread into a debate of which
policy is better or worse, because it is a per developer decision.
I have read the simple example on cocoadevcentral.com on making a
serial number generator, but it would be possible to reverse engineer
the algorithm, so for a comprehensive licensing framework, I don't
think that an obfuscation approach should be used. If someone could
point me to some methods that are secure using cryptography (either
public key or secure hashing) it would be appreciated so I can evaluate
the pros and cons of all methods.
Any pointers, information, links to websites, conceptual overviews, etc
are greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Greg
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