Re: [now OT] Licensing/Implementing in Cocoa/Obj-C - Interest in product?
Re: [now OT] Licensing/Implementing in Cocoa/Obj-C - Interest in product?
- Subject: Re: [now OT] Licensing/Implementing in Cocoa/Obj-C - Interest in product?
- From: "Dennis C.De Mars" <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2004 20:20:42 -0700
On Apr 6, 2004, at 7:08 PM, Bob Ippolito wrote:
Well a dual licensing scenario doesn't make much sense. It's unheard
of for something under the GPL (or similar) to require licensing.
This is one of those give-it-away-or-don't situations.
Umm, that's not really an accurate statement. The original poster seems
to suggest making parts of the product open-source but requiring a
license for the entire product. I write this on a computer that runs on
an OS using this concept (OS X).
Furthermore, the copyright holder can also do other things like grant a
GPL license for people who want to use a product or incorporate it in
GPL'd products, and a commercial license for those who want to want to
incorporate it in commercial products. There are LOTS of GPL
open-source applications out there that operate in this way. The
original poster mentioned one: MySQL.
In this case, the guy could do exactly that if he wants to. He can make
the source GPL for those who think it would be just dandy to see this
as an open-source project, and charge people who want to use it in a
commercial product. The open-source fans have no reason to kick
because, after all, they can use it and modify it to their hearts
content in all of their open source projects.
The only catch here is that this is one of the few projects I can think
of that wouldn't make sense to GPL (regardless of whether a commercial
version was available) because why use would any GPL project have for a
licensing system? By definition only commercial software have use for
such a thing. In fact, come to think of it I'm puzzled by the guy who
said it would be a good Sourceforge project because either it would be
GPL (therefore useless since only non-GPL software has a use for it) or
it would be under some kind of BSD-style license that allows commercial
re-use, but then what the guy was saying was "Wouldn't it be great if
you gave your source code away...so I can use it in projects I'm going
to charge for?"
Sorry if that sounds a little pugnacious. I'm actually all for open
source but I don't think every developer that comes along with an idea
to make a little money has to be exhorted to make their code open
source.
To contribute a little to some of the other subjects mentioned in this
thread, I was looking into some sort of public-key serial number scheme
myself (as the scheme I currently use for my shareware products can be
and has been easily cracked). I was disappointed to find out that the
keys for conventional public-key cryptography are too long (if you want
them to be secure) to allow generation of a serial number that could be
entered by hand -- you'd have to go the file route. However, it looks
to me like elliptic-curve cryptography can be secure with much shorter
keys. Using this it might be possible to do serial numbers that are
around 36 characters long. A bit on the longish side but still
acceptable by my standards. However, implementation is far from
trivial.
Actually, if I ever get around to implementing such a scheme it would
probably be something I would be willing to make open source! (As I
said above, a GPL wouldn't make much sense for something like this, so
I'd make it a BSD-style license). However, it would just be for
generating and checking the serial number, it wouldn't be a full blown
licensing scheme. Something appropriate for small shareware developers
who want a scheme that isn't totally trivial to crack but don't care
about a totally unbreakable scheme -- people like me. For those who
need the later, I'd look for a commercial solution.
- Dennis D.
Your best bet, IMHO, is probably to tightly couple it with a
registration brokering house and arrange for them to give you a
kickback when a software developer uses your toolkit (maybe even per
registration), since your toolkit would essentially advertise their
system. This makes the software developers happy, because they do not
have to risk a large initial investment in your toolkit (since it is
free, maybe "as in beer" or possibly "as in speech" as well), it makes
the registration brokering house happy because they have more
customers which means they make more money, and it makes you happy
because you get paid :)
-bob
On Apr 6, 2004, at 8:52 PM, Stefan Pantke wrote:
Greg,
yes, might be.
But I work self employed. Thus, I earn my money directly
by my own work.
Although I like to give back stuff, I should have the money
component in focus - otherwise, I would die at starvation ;-)
Do you see some solution for this situation? Doing parts
as OpenSource and earning money as well?
Since such a project will certainly not be as big as
MySQL for example, the return in money might be quite
small.
Stefan
Am 07.04.2004 um 02:38 schrieb Greg Hulands:
Sounds like a sourceforge project to start!!
On 07/04/2004, at 9:20 AM, Stefan Pantke wrote:
How is the general interest in such a system?
We might pack a product and probably sell it.
Currently, this is what's it is doing:
- Generate public/private key pairs
- Generate a new serial number for each new license
- Enter client data and select license type (single/enterprise/..)
- LicenseBuilder as application
- license checker as library
- Interface code
- Handle several applications to be licensed
- Set RSA key size
- Sample project
- Create license files and digitally sing it (using LicenseBuilder)
- Verify license files (in client app)
- Probably Rendezvous based identification of other apps using
the same key
- All stuff is C/ObjC
What do you think?
What would you need?
Stefan
Am 07.04.2004 um 00:42 schrieb Shawn Erickson:
On Apr 6, 2004, at 3:11 PM, Stefan Pantke wrote:
But to my knowledge there isn't such advanced crackers on the
Mac, is there? :) Although we did have a guy state he could
break 128 bit AES in no time, but hopefully he will only use
this power for good... ;)
AES in such a short time? Quite interesting! Shouldn't he
join NSA?
I think this is the guy he is talking about...
<http://homepage.mac.com/shawnce/misc/aesattack/>
-Shawn
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