[ale] Open-source software license manager

[Alex LeDonne]

On 6/22/07, Jeffrey B. Layton <laytonjb at charter.net> wrote:
> George Carless wrote:
> > On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 10:24:40AM -0400, Jim Popovitch wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, 2007-06-22 at 09:16 -0400, George Carless wrote:
> >>
> >>> (All of this talk of license management is oddly incongruous on ALE, btw...)
> >>>
> >> Really?   (care to expand)
> >>
> >
> > Well, license management typically implies restrictions on use which are
> > antithetical to the nature of free software, right?  I can't imagine
> > needing to "manage" GPL-licensed software in this respect, for example.
> >
> After I sent the email, I immediately thought, "that sounds really
> stupid." But let me explain a bit further.
>
> I'm not sure if anyone is familiar with flexlm, a license manager
> that is used in a lot of ISV codes (typically engineer or scientific
> codes). Flexlm is a real pain in the butt to work with. I've had
> this tolerate-hate relationship with it from sometime.
>
> So what I'm looking for is an open-source license manager that
> these ISV's can use in their closed code. (It does seem kind of
> strange, doesn't it?). The idea would be for ISV's to use this open
> source license manager in their proprietary codes. Since it's open
> source, we can identify and fix bugs rather then rely on a third
> party closed code where the owner isn't too concerned about
> improvements/bug fixes and the like - just making money (I can't
> fault them for wanting to keep their product and company alive
> but I am faulting them for having a crappy product and not responding
> to customers).
>
> Does this explanation help? I know it still sounds weird though.
>
> Jeff

OK, sounds like you want a BSD-style-licensed license management
system, both server and client code & API, right? Doesn't sound too
weird to me, though George's observation about finding devs and Jeff
L's about finding adopters both seem valid.

If you haven't found one, write up the requirements and start the
project. Announce it here. I've always heard that most FOSS starts
when a developer has an itch that needs to be scratched. This sounds
like that kind of itch. :)

-Alex