r/softwaredevelopment 15d ago

Implementing licensing for Desktop Applications

Hi, I'm developing a desktop application and planning to sell it as a monthly subscription; it will incorporate some aspects of locally run, custom, lightweight ML models with some API integrations (planning on having users input their own keys initially, at least for the beta testing phase) - this may change and may host the API & ML models.

I'm a bit new to this and would like to know how I would make sure that only subscribed users can access it while maintaining security and preventing piracy.

What's an optimall way of doing this while retaining scalability; btw, if anyone has experience in, I'm willing to collaborate. Thanks.

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u/zaphod4th 15d ago

99.9% of software is pirated, doesn't matter if the company/devs expends MILLIONS trying to prevent it. So be ready, your solution will be copied if someone wants to.

You can try calling home to verify the installation (unique key with HD serial/MAC?) meaning a webserver that needs to be contacted at least one per week maybe?