SoftwareShield defines a "License Model" as the terms and conditions (or rights and restrictions) that you grant a user and/or customer of your software as defined by your business model.  More specifically, "supported SoftwareShield license models" refers to the available license model enforcement options the SoftwareShield System SDK provides to your software.

The SoftwareShield System SDK supports numerous license models.  In fact, the system is designed to be so flexible, that developers can combine multiple license models together in arbitrary configurations to achieve a virtually limitless number of customized license models.

We distinguish supported license models in this document from Available Activation Methods.  This is because you can create an arbitrary license model - and then use any combination of the available activation methods to control the license enforcement on the users machine.

Below, you will see a number of the fundamental license models that are supported.  Keep in mind that these fundamentals can be combined in numerous ways to create the exact model your business requires.

• Copy Protected (Node-locked) Licenses - This model allows you to lock a license tightly to an individual machine based on its FingerPrint.

• Seat Based (Bulk) Licenses - This model allows you to deliver a "token of ownership" of your software which represents an arbitrary number of activations (seats).

• Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Licenses - This model allows you to deliver a "token of ownership" to your software (a Serial Number) which can be physically packaged in a box for retail sale.

• Time Limited Trial Licenses - This model allows you to deliver a time limited trial version of your software that expires at some arbitrary point in time after the user first runs the software.  When expired, your software can either stop functioning completely or change to some other model.

• Absolute Expiration Licenses - This model allows you to deliver a time limited trial version of your software that expires at some absolute point in time (regardless of when the user first runs the software).  When expired, your software can either stop functioning completely or change to some other model.

• Demo Licenses - This model allows you to deliver a feature limited version of your software.  

• Periodic Expiration (Leased) Licenses - This model allows you to deliver a version of your software that repeatedly expires after some arbitrary number of days, weeks or months has passed.  Customers must repeatedly re-activate in order to continue using your software.

• Scalar (Edition Based) Licenses - This model allows you to deliver a single deployment of your software that can "behave" in one of several different "modes" or "editions". The editions are normally "scalar" because one edition has all the features of the edition before it - plus some.

• Pay-Per-Feature Licenses - This model allows you to deliver software for which a user must individually pay for features. "Features" can be as simple as the functionality behind a button click or the ability to dynamically load a binary module. In this model features are completely independent from one another and can be individually purchased and activated or treated as a group.

• Pay-Per-Use (of a feature) Licenses - This model is an extension of the above Pay-Per-Feature model and allows you to deliver software for which a user must individually pay for each use of a feature. Again, features can be as simple as the functionality behind a button click or the ability to dynamically load a binary module. In this model features are completely independent from one another and the uses for each of them can be individually purchased and activated.

• Pay-Per-Use (by execution) Licenses - This model allows you to deliver software for which the user must pay every time they execute it.

• Combination Licenses - All of the above models can be combined in a myriad of ways to achieve a huge number of precise models to suit your particular business needs.