A contractual agreement between software purchasers and the software publisher that specifies what the purchaser may and may not do with the software. Typically, such licenses include clauses that deny that any sale of goods has taken place; what is being sold is not the software itself, the ownership of which is retained by the software publisher, but rather specific rights to use the software, as detailed in the license; for end-user software sold in the mass market, such rights are typically limited to installing and using the software on one computer only.
Additional license provisions typically absolve the publisher of all liability in case of losses attributable to software flaws and forbid the user to engage in any of the following actions: making additional, unauthorized copies; decompiling or reverse engineering the software; and giving, selling, or renting the software to others.
Technipages Explains Software License
Software Licenses is an agreement legally binding guidelines for the use of a software as agreed upon by the Software developer and software user. This bestows the user of the software, the permission to use such software in a pre-defined environment.
Licenses usually come with instructions stating how that the sales of the software only means the right to use the software and not the sale of the proprietorship of the software, which most times would mean using the software on just a computer system.
Software licensing started with the use of cassette and audio tapes which were hard to duplicate, As 8’ and 5 1/4 “gained grounds, it made it easier for the copying of software. Later on ISV (International Software Vendors) started building software which would be bonded to a specific machine through an identifier unique to the machine. This proved to be a problem as the programs stopped working once customers changed their machine. The software couldn’t be transferred easily to another machine. Eventually, ISV came up with the use of servers that have license delivery systems on them, which limited a number the number of users who could use the software at a time. The emergence of digital communication has made the use of license keys distributed electronically, so does pirate the software. Today Cloud licensing technology is what is being used.
Common Uses of Software License
- The purchase of software Licenses does not mean the proprietor of the software is selling the ownership of the software
- International software vendors have been ensuring over the years that software licenses are devoid of fraudulent practices both at the side of the Purchaser and the Proprietor
- Software licenses are proof that permission has been given to an individual or group of people to use a software
Common Misuses of Software License
- Software Licenses implies once gotten, a customer has shares in the proprietors profit from the software
- Software licenses should not hinder customers from purchasing one copy of a program and copying it into multiple computers or machines
