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Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 09:34:49 +0200
From: kuku@gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de (Christoph P. Kukulies)
To: jhs@freebsd.org (Julian H. Stacey)
Cc: current@freebsd.org, serious@freebsd.org, commercial@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Licensing Software
In-Reply-To: <199609250013.CAA02049@vector.jhs.no_domain>; from Julian H. Stacey on Sep 25, 1996 2:13:01 +0200
References: <199609250013.CAA02049@vector.jhs.no_domain>
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Julian H. Stacey writes:
> I plan to soon sell a 3rd party commercial binary FreeBSD product.
> 
> I either need to :
> - Develop alone, hooks for such things as 
> 	- constructing machine IDs (from poking around the system)
> 	- user count (for single workstation or multi user server pricing)
> 	- link crippled-write, time limited, demo versions
> 	- make must be minimal hastle to authors, requiring no change to 
> 	- sources, just to Link flags
> 	- non availability to me (as distributor) of source,
> 	  but availability of .o files
> - Or I can maybe develop a mechanism with other interested commercial sellers,
>   so that FreeBSD would have some generic mechanism, & maybe unique 
>   product & system keys.
> 
> - Or I can even buy in such a solution if one's available ?

FlexLM is one answer.


> 
> I've read `Sun Expert' in the past, with horror stories of Sun lock managers
> across nets, & I am not interested in any net strategies,
> this will be local to the box.

licensing is the most common cuse of customer frustration :-)

> 
> I'm not into academic elegant lots-of-effort solutions,
> I'm after a cheap dirty quick solution, I don't want to spend much

For the purpose you need it ;-) I'd recommend binding your program
to the ethernet address. Your customer wouldn't change their ethernet 
interface in years.

I did that for 386bsd a while ago. I wrote a function 'getether.c'
upon which I built a licensing key via crypt(). If you rewrite that function
to FreeBSD-current (kvm_open interface has changed a bit)
I'll give it to you :-). Ask me in private mail.


> time on this, my budgeted work time on this is limited,
> (& I'd prefer to spend my free on public source, not licence stuff)
> 
> I have to get something up quickly, & whatever I cobble together,
> will be simpler to do alone (& keep secret :-),
> but if other vendors are thinking along similar lines, & interested in
> some kind of generic mechanism, then I'll try to comply.
> 
> If anyone has something to give or even sell me, or wants to work with me,
> please let me know.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Julian
> ---
> Julian H. Stacey	jhs@freebsd.org		http://www.freebsd.org/~jhs/

-- 
--Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de