License / Registration key enabled software

[Mike Playle]

On Thu, 28 Sep 2006 18:44:13 +0200, Sybren Stuvel wrote:

> Steve Holden enlightened us with:
>> And you guarantee that the contents of the smartcard is only used by one
>> user at a time by building a licensing system for the smartcards?
> 
> We can never, ever make a 100% guarantee that people won't copy what you
> supply them. The only way to do that is to thoroughly monitor them 24/7,
> violating every privacy law in existance.

Yes, this is an important part of the point I'm trying to make.

The people who want to use your software illegitimately will succeed no
matter what you do, so you shouldn't worry about them. Worry instead about
the people who DON'T want to use it illegitimately. Can a license key
scheme help them? If so, implement it. No trickery is needed - a simple
comparison will suffice.

Mike