LabVIEW
Executable Activation Protection
SJT wrote:
Battler, thanks for the quick response. To clarify a bit: I'd like to use a scheme identical to the one NI uses to require executables created with NI Vision to be activated on a single PC. If a user tries to install the program on an additional PC, it will be dis-allowed during activation because a database on the NI web server already has recorded the serial number as taken. So the user needs to buy another program. There are a variety of products that allow you to implement this but they have a wide range of prices and , presumably, performance ranges. I want customers to purchase the software but I don't want them to have a bad experience installing it. So I'm looking for recommendations from the LabVIEW community if anyone has experience solving this problem.
First the system NI employs does not strictly refuse activation when the serial number is already registered for a different system. It has a leeway for some parallel installations since legally NI allows either per developer licenses which means a license can be installed on up to three computers provided only one single person is using them ever or a per seat license which means it can only be installed on one machine but multiple people can use it on that computer (obviously only serially).
If they would be to strict about never allowing more than one single activation of any serial number the activation process would simply break down as to many people would get badly annoyed for various reasons, such as when reinstalling the software on an upgraded system or a new computer after the old has been trashed.
And Battler is right, any useful license management system is a very non-trivial task to develop.It is very unlikely that you will ever possibly retrieve the financial effort you have to put into such a system unless you produce software that is sold several 1000 times or more in an unaltered way, which is not the typical LabVIEW application at all.
That said word has it that NI is working on something that would allow its users to somehow add some sort of licensing control into LabVIEW application. See this discussion and the responses by Chris Bolin. Note that this is something that NI seems to look into and probably has some ideas and maybe even some pre release working solution, but which they are not prepared to make any comittment in terms of a release date or even feature list yet. So go and ask but don't be mad if the answer is not what you would have liked to hear.
