Designating Products for Trial or Grace Period Use

Sentinel LDK enables you to create, protect, and distribute secure trialware versions of your software. You can invite users to download your trial software from networks, to share it with other users, and to give it away to their friends or colleagues. End users then have the option to purchase your software and to turn their trial copy into a fully-licensed version by activating it with a Sentinel protection key.

You can also use Sentinel LDK to define grace periods for your software. During the grace period, and even after activation, end users can pass copies of their purchased software to as many friends as they wish. When a friend installs the software, it automatically reverts to a limited trial version for the entire grace period. After the grace period expires, the software can no longer run until it is activated with a Sentinel protection key.

Sentinel LDK enables you to define trial and grace periods of up to 90 days for software protected with any type of Sentinel protection key.

For example, software protected with Sentinel HL keys can be purchased and delivered over the Internet with a built-in grace period while the Sentinel HL keys are shipped. The end users can start using the software immediately while waiting for the arrival of their Sentinel HLkeys.

Similarly, end users who purchase and install a software application can use it for a grace period without activating it. During this grace period, they can activate the software remotely and receive a Sentinel SL key, after which the software will run according to the purchased license terms stored in the keys. If the grace period expires and the software has not been activated, the software stops running until activated by the end user.

In Sentinel LDK, a Product that is intended for distribution as trialware or for use during a grace period is referred to as an unlocked trialware Product.

Your licensing plan can include all the unlocked trialware Products to be offered by your organization.

NOTE    You may be able to issue an unlocked Product for any length of time. This depends on the type of module that you subscribe to for your Sentinel LDK Master license. For details, see Defining Unlocked Products.