🚀 go-pugleaf

I posted an idea last month that never seemed to get noticed, so I'll
try again. What follows is another possible solution to protecting
software vendors without creating too much trouble for the user.

Let's say that users *license* software rather than purchase it (that's
what most of the "license agreements" say anyway). Further, let's say
that the license is for a specified time period (one year?) and that
the user is required to fill out and send in a registration card after
the original purchase. On that registration card is a "password" that
is defined by the purchaser. The password will be necessary to renew
the license.

As the one year license period draws to a close (let's say after 10-11
months), the user will begin to get reminders every time the program is
launched that the license needs to be renewed along with directions on
how to do the renewal. He/she can renew simply by calling the company
and providing the password and serial number of his/her program. If the
password and serial number are OK and not already renewed, the company
would calculate a string for the user to type into a dialog box to
refresh the expiration date of the currently running program. The
company would then mark that serial number as "updated". If a
subsequent user calls and tries to update the license, he/she would be
told that it was already updated and the company could not update
another copy.

This would periodically "purge" non-valid copies, would put some burden
on the user, and would avoid the key disk kinds of copy protections
while still protecting the company's interests.

Is this too much trouble for the user? Is it preferable to the disk
based copy protection?

Bob Gross
bob.gross@dartmouth.edu

PS - the above assumes that there is a valid way to check the date/time
on the computer that cannot be fooled by just changing the clock - this
can be done.


Bob Gross
bob.gross@dartmouth.edu