software licencing

[markw at mohawksoft.com (markw at mohawksoft.com)]

> As much as I hate the idea, the company I'm working for wants to protect
> their software IP through
> a licensing facility. Is there such a thing as an open source licensing
> facility? Basically I want
> my software to be able to call a routine which tells it that its
> authorized to execute on the system
> its on. Are there any companies selling this kind of software? I need it
> to run on windows and Linux.

I actualy wrote something like that a while back. What you should
understand before you begin your search is that some are better than
others, but in the end, it doesn't matter. No matter how good the system
is, if your software is something that people will want to crack, they'll
crack it.

If all you want to do is perform basic licensing assurance, 99.9% of the
users won't bother to try cracking your protection. So, I would say don't
put too much effort into it, get something simple and cheap, or write it
yourself.

Also, you "can't" protect open source software, itself, because a user
would just remove the license call and recompile.

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