This section lists some, but far from all, ways of providing your potential customers with demo versions of your software. Depending on the level of protection you are interested in, you can choose a method that you may want to employ; in some cases you may want to use a single method, whereas sometimes combining multiple methods will provide the best possible protection for your application.
| Method | Description |
|---|---|
| Trial Licenses | LM-X’s trial license feature lets end users use an application for a predetermined length of time without requiring a license. This feature can be useful for eliminating the need to supply licenses with evaluation software distributed to a large number of anonymous users. Note: When using trial licenses or time limitations (see below), you can use the LM-X API to gather useful feedback information, such as how much time is left before the application expires and the specific expiration date. You may have your application display expiration information to the end user as a reminder to fully license your product. As added security when using such a method, LM-X protects against circumvention attempts such as system clock changes. |
| Time Limitations | Similar to LM-X’s trial license option, you can specify a time limitation within a local license file for which your application can be run. For example, you might configure your application to run for only 30 days from the date of issuing the license. Using this method, you can easily distribute evaluation versions of your application without requiring the more complex setup of a license server. The note in trial licenses regarding using the LM-X API to gather information also applies to the use of time limitations. |
| Restricted Usage | LM-X makes it easy to restrict application functionality for trial use. Simply omit some or all features from the license file that you distribute. Since the feature is not specified in the license file, the corresponding module in your application will be unavailable to the user. As an alternative, you might wish to introduce a DEMO feature, which would give only partial access to the application. |
| Visual Reminders | You might wish to encourage full licensing of your software by having your program show a popup periodically, or when the license is a few days from expiration. To further encourage full registration, you can implement such means as switching the position of a button users must press to continue opening the demo version. |
| Watermarks | You may not want your prospective customers to be able to use your application for uses other than evaluation. To help limit use for such a purpose, you may wish to add watermarks to printed output; for example, by writing “EVALUATION” in large text over printed pages. Such watermarks can even be placed on screen output as a further reminder to the user to license the software fully. |
| Trial Usage | Trial usage lets you run your software only a specified number of times, for example 10. Note: Software vendors may prohibit the use of trial licenses on virtual machines. (See Licensing for virtual machines and cloud computing for more information.) |