licensing

[speedy33417]

I'm at the final stages of a managment website software that will be offered to some companies. It's basically an industry specific website with a database in the background. Just a tool for these companies to handle their information (clients, orders, employees, etc.)

 

This will be a subscription-based license. I'm trying to figure out the best possible way to make sure that once it's installed on their web server it's not going to be just stolen.

 

First I was thinking about having a subscriber database on my end where I store the expiration date of their software and at each log in I would verify that it's still valid.

The problem with that is that could easily just remove that part of the script.

 

Second solution would be that the database for each of my client is on my server and I could cut off access at any point. Problem with that is that my cost is greater having to store hundreds of databases and deal with all MySQL queries on my end, which would mean that I would need to lease a dedicated server.

 

What other solution is there?

 

Thanks for any help.

[mithras]

A license will help so your code cannot be stolen "legally". The company has still the readable php code so they can use it. If you're sure you want to keep control you can use something like Zend Guard or another encryption software.