Selling my software.

[A.Salcedo]

Hello to all.

First of all thanks a lot for reading this post and being able to help.

I would like to sell my softare developing in Labview.

My questions is:

1. When I buy NI softwares i have to pay every year. In that year, Can I sell as many programs as I want or there is a limit of licenses that I can sell?

2. how can I protect my software? I mean if I sell the software to a company I want that Company can just use the software in a PC and does not be able to copy the software.

Thanks a lot for any help!

[Norbert_B]

The license you are paying for is the development license. For running a finished application, the LV Runtime Engine (RTE) is sufficient. The license for the RTE is free of costs.

That being said, you can sell as many applications without additional costs if you finalize the application to e.g. an EXE.

Please note that if you are using LV Modules, there are some which require a runtime which is liable to costs. So you had to add this RTE cost to the cost of your application. Also, selling the software would require you to make sure that the customer gets a new RTE license from NI for that Module.

Regarding software licensing/activation, there are a ton of different options like Registry keys, (USB) dongles or additional license server (like the NI License Manager).

Norbert

[Hooovahh]

Whenever I think about applications being marketed and sold that were built from LabVIEW, I usually think about how JKI does it with VIPM.

http://vipm.jki.net/

This is software written in LabVIEW, using the LabVIEW runtime engine, not requiring the development environment to run.  They also have a trial, and a paid version using custom code.

Since VIPM has came out there have been several other licensing tools you might be interested in instead of writing your own like JKI did like BLT, or the others mentioned like NI's licensing tools.

[Gregory]

Here is an unsophisticated idea 🙂

[A.Salcedo]

Thanks for replying!!

It could work but it is really decipherable. Just change computer name.

But it could work for tests.

Any similar idea??

Thanks a lot!!! 

[Sam_Sharp]

What sort of software is it? You could always tie your application to a specific piece of hardware by reading it's serial number.

I also lean these days towards the idea of selling a 'service', rather than a piece of software. Most LabVIEW software tends to be quite specific (e.g. for a particular piece of equipment) and therefore is less likely to be copied/'pirated' than general purpose software. Having restrictive licensing tends to cause more problems than it solves as most forms of licensing/copy protection are usually pretty easily bypassed/hacked etc. and it can cause a hassle for your genuine clients (e.g. if they get a new PC and need to re-activate the software).

Probably one of the best ways to protect yourself is something along the lines of a EULA - a license agreement which details what the end user can/can't do with the software (e.g. transfer/copy).

In short - have a think about how other applications do it (web activation, serial numbers, dongles etc.) and decide which one would work for you.

[A.Salcedo]

Absolutely i can do that you say about atach the program to a specific pice of hardware.

But the problem is that I have to leave my program in client's company (not executable, the whole program because a .exe does not wor fine yet). So I would like to protect the diagram block and copies that client can do...

[PalanivelThiruvenkadam]

Can use password protected VI's.

Its always better to give installable files to client.

[stockson]

You can also use this: http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/pl/nid/209107

[Hooovahh]

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@A.Salcedo wrote:

But the problem is that I have to leave my program in client's company (not executable, the whole program because a .exe does not wor fine yet). So I would like to protect the diagram block and copies that client can do...

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It sounds like you are asking for a way to deliver source code to a client, and have it be restricted.  This just isn't something that can be done.  Sure you can password protect the block diagram but the source is still there.  Make a built binary executable and license that.  Microsoft doesn't just ship Word as source code and ask people to build their own execuable, or run it as source, neither should you.