Time-Stamping Demo programs #2

Paul Dupuis paul at researchware.com
Tue Apr 24 11:08:45 EDT 2012


On 4/24/2012 8:36 AM, Richmond wrote:
> On 24/04/12 04:04, Kay C Lan wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 4:45 PM,
>> Richmond<richmondmathewson at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Blast! I am trying to find a way so that I don't have a file "floating
>>> about" on somebody's system that they can just flush away to
>>> reset the 30 day limit on my DEMO.
>>>
>> I'm assuming then you must have some sort of licensing system for
>> those who
>> wish to go beyond the demo. How does this work? Surely your demo
>> licensing
>> system must be based aound it.
>>
>> I'm out of my depth here because I only develop for a very small
>> circle of
>> users (more like a dot really;-) so licensing isn't an issue, but I
>> thought
>> the whole concept of the Splash stack was to get around the
>> limitation of a
>> stack not being able to save to itself. Once you have a Splash-Working
>> stack arrangement you can save your rego info in an encrypted
>> sub-stack, as
>> a customProp so it isn't available to prying eyes to throw away or
>> amend.
>
> They can, however, throw away the substack (because, as far as I can
> work out, it cannot
> be a substack - so cannot be hidden inside a standalone's file
> structure - but a free-standing stack),
> at which point a standalone would recreate the stack with an updated
> time-stamp.
>

There is no way to create a time based demo that can not be circumvented
that relies on the local system's time as the user can always reset
their computer's clock. Which is generally easier than trying to track
down a possibly hidden file somewhere that is tracking the elapsed time.

If you really want to make a time based demo, and do not want to risk a
local encrypted hidden file that keeps track of the elapsed time, you
need to require an internet connection and both get your time and keep
track of it on a server you control. LiveCode's built in internet
functions make it very easy to exchange data with a PHP or LiveCode
server application to track a unique demo identifier and timestamp in a
simple file or database.

However, I'd agree with Richard Gaskin's post that a feature limited
demo is generally a better marketing approach than a time limited demo.

-- 
Paul Dupuis
Cofounder
Researchware, Inc.
http://www.researchware.com/
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