in reply to Re: Registering and License Keys
in thread Registering and License Keys

This is actually a very good idea. You probably shouldn't install a serial number into the program - just put that on the contract document you signed with your customer. You can approach non-contract bound users as potential customers. If you do all the usual dance with trademarks and copyright and appropriate legal backing you should be alright.


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Re: Re^2: Registering and License Keys
by cecil36 (Pilgrim) on Feb 12, 2003 at 16:39 UTC
    Good idea. However, if the means of distribution is over the Internet, our fellow AM (anonymous monk) can work with a company such as http://www.digitalriver.com to handle the purchasing and electronic distribution. In exchange for a portion of the sale as a commission, Digital River will set up your online ordering and notify you of sales. With my employer, they can provide our software product for download and automatically assign a serial number and provide it upon confirmation of the purchase. At the end of each day, Digital River provides us with the info on what was purchased, and we input that into our database manually. I would recommend a setup similar to this.

    For a demo user, I would make a separate build of your script, and license it "FOR EVALUATION ONLY". Water down the evaluation version if you so desire so the customer has an incentive to purchase the full version (a la "lite" version). Keep a separate log of these downloads, and support these people for only a short period of time, then if they call or write back after the evaluation period has expired, then either refuse them support, or offer them the full version.
Re: Re^2: Registering and License Keys
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 12, 2003 at 15:55 UTC

    cheers for the help guys, much appreciated. I tried buffy'ing it but i've been having a few problems.

    I can get this code to buffy and still work:

    #!c:\perl\bin\perl
    use Acme::Buffy;
    print "This is a test\n";

    but when I change it and try to view through a browser with code like this:

    #!c:\perl\bin\perl
    use Acme::Buffy;
    print "Content-type:text/html\n\n";
    print "This is a test";

    it doesn't work anymore and I just get Internal Error. What am I doing wrong? Doesn't Buffy work for web scripts???

    Thanks,
    Tom

      The user your web server runs on may not have the right privileges to modify the script. Acme::Buffy works by encoding the script and then saving the new version over the top of the old one. Check your error logs and do all the usual web-server debug dance steps.


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