>As many of you are aware, some applications built
>on Interbase rely on Interbase's licensing to control
>their own access. Needless to say, Interbase V6
>will have no licensing, leaving the developers of
>those applications in the lurch.
>
>I bring this problem to your attention, hoping
>to find a solution that is consistent with our
>open source license, open source philosophy, and
>a certain desire to provide real protection
>rather than obfuscation.

Seems to me that this is an area that is going to get shaken up quite a bit
to really be done right. Certainly more needs to be done than the 6.0
release timeframe will allow. So, I think it will be important for people to
distinguish between what is going to be a realistic approach for the
short-term to get IB6 out the door and to look forward to what is really
version 6.5 or 7.0 release material...

I'd personally like to be a part of both discussions, unfortunately I am not
a licensing (security) expert. That's one reason why I chose InterBase is
because it handled that for me...

Is this the problem at hand or is there more? A customer is selling a
verticle app for 10K a seat and their only means of enforcing licensing is
via the InterBase licensing strategy?

Open source does pose a significant problem but it's a problem I don't
already see as a problem... Who is to stop them from getting keys to expand
their server?

What I think needs to happen (possibly in the long-term) is have a way that
the server and the client handshake such that a vendor of a VAR app could
build his own specific version of the InterBase server (or InterBase could
provide one for him)that will only work with a certain license signature
from the client. I did notice that there is a isc_dpb_license setting that
might be hijacked for this purpose. There is also a isc_dpb_encrypt
parameter that might help some how too. Because these are existing IB
parameters It is probably possible toget them alive in the IB6.0 version...

FWIW,
Jason Wharton
CPS - Mesa AZ
http://www.ibobjects.com

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