Ask HN: Should I enforce software licensing, and if so, how?
2 comments
Have your application periodically register with a registration service and monitor for excessive use. If you detect something, call up the customer and ask what's going on and present your data. Tell them they are not licensed to run unlimited number of instances and they need to pay up. If they don't, have a built-in shutdown command that you can issue to the software instances that are unlicensed.
Do you think "phoning-home" would be considered bad behaviour?
Are there other applications which already do this?
Are there other applications which already do this?
I intend to license it at around $50/server. Most use cases need the software on multiple servers. Is there any way to encourage/enforce that customers who install 20 copies to pay for 20 copies instead of just one?
Is there a way of doing this without annoying the honest majority (minority?) of customers.
(I'm intending to build the customer's email address into the binary and help screen, to dissuade copying.)
What is current best practice re: licensing and enforcement?