Question

Let’s assume that you’ve created a SharePoint solution – a WebPart, a feature for a List Template, whatever – that you are planning to sell as a product.

How would you go about handling licensing of your solution?

I’m looking for some input in at least the following areas:

1. Code-wise:

   1.1. Where do you keep the license itself? as a file somewhere? (then what happens in farms?) as a property in the property bag of the farm?

   1.2. Do you implement “home-calling” – where your solution validate the license every now and then against your company’s servers?

   1.3. Any other best practice in this area will be welcome…

2. Business wise: How do you license – per user? per server? per instance (in case of WebParts or List Templates)?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I could tell you what we do:

1. We have a separate farm solution that handles trial/registration support for all our products
2. The license is eventually stored in the farm property bag (you have to support multiple servers)
3. We have a page to enter license key under the central admin solution’s page
4. We license by front-end, you can know the number of front-end in the farm in code.
5. All products have a product name and the license key is a one-way encryption containing the product name. the trial support solution handles key validation.