Week 6: Clear

Image of a EULA. Photo provided by Taran Ramparsad.http://www.flickr.com/photos/knowprose/56007551/lightbox/

            This week the concept that was made clear to me was the aspect of software licensing. There are two types of software licenses available: commercial software licenses and open source software licenses. Commercial licenses are those you have to buy, while open source licenses are free. Breaking shrink-wrap is when you buy a package of software that has a license statement on it and once you open the package you agree implicitly to the contract. Another agreement is called an End User License Agreement, which creates a contract between the program developer, and the consumer, which contains regulations on the agreements terms of use. The End User Agreement is a perpetual license, which means you can use the software as long as you want.

            Knowing about different software licenses is very important in the business environment. Based on the needs of your business it is important to differentiate between the different licenses so you no what you are getting into when you purchase software. It is also important in your business to be aware of volume licensing which is a contract between the publisher and the customer (the customer being a business). You will have to decide whether to have a per user license, a per seat license, servers based on number of CPUs, or term licensing which is subscription based which you renew on an annual basis.

            I found an article that displays the different software license types. The article differentiates between single-user license agreements and multi-user license agreements. It also lists some special channel licenses like Not for Resale software license, which means the software cannot be resold. Here is the linka: http://tulane.edu/tsweb/software/software-license-types.cfm