Publishing a library on VIPM ?

[Youssef Menjour]

Hi everybody,

 

Is someone know what possibility exist to distribute a library on LabVIEW. I mean, is there only VIPM tool ?

I would also like to know where I can find a complete guide on licensing and licensing policy. If i want to put licence on my product what are my option ? How it works (licensing tools) ? What are the different types of licenses possible ?

I would like to make several versions of my HAIBAL project with several licensing policies (student, lab and pro) and didn't find a document explaining all of this part.

As this is our first software sale on the NI store (or other platform) and I don't have a lawyer on my team, I have a lot of questions: is it complicated to sell my product online ?

What are the obligations attached to each type of license? Does JKI offer a solution for all this? If so, how much does it cost? Is it only an acquisition cost, or do you then take a royalty on sales?

Is someone can help me on this subject ?

 

Thanks !

 

Youssef

[Antoine Chalons]

Lots of questions here, I will simply point you to vipm.io from when you'll be able to get VIPM related info.

There are 4 'levels' of VIPM, free, community, pro and entreprise, see differences here https://www.vipm.io/download/

As far as I know VIPM is not a tool that will let you manage license subscription in your product, for this I think the best starting point is on NI forums : https://forums.ni.com/t5/Developer-Center-Resources/tkb-p/7307

 

As a side note, I think handling different types of licenses of your product is not an easy task, good luck with that!

[ShaunR]

8 hours ago, Youssef Menjour said:

I would also like to know where I can find a complete guide on licensing and licensing policy.

Start here and then Google specifics. Good luck  Generally though, you choose a licence and then mark the software as being covered by that licence (about box, licence file, etc) . Commercial offerings a bit harder though since you need to stop people using it if they have not bought a licence.

8 hours ago, Youssef Menjour said:

I would like to make several versions of my HAIBAL project with several licensing policies (student, lab and pro) and didn't find a document explaining all of this part.

Two ways you can look at it. A single piece of software that the user can choose from multiple licences (hard) or multiple, discrete, pieces of software have their own licence (easy).

8 hours ago, Youssef Menjour said:

is it complicated to sell my product online

Non commercial is easy-just distribute a licence with the product. Commercial is harder-you need to cripple the software somehow when distributed and only become fully featured after a licence is purchased. You can either go it alone (web page and download) or via NI who have a couple of options. You would need to contact NI since they recently changed their sales model so I don't know what they are offering now,

8 hours ago, Youssef Menjour said:

What are the obligations attached to each type of license?

Depends on the licence-there are many.

8 hours ago, Youssef Menjour said:

Does JKI offer a solution for all this?

Not that I'm aware of. VIPM is an installer and distribution platform.

If it's a commercial product then you will also need to look into the Third Party Licensing and Activation toolkit

If you want a completely managed sales solution then speak with NI.

 

[Youssef Menjour]

thanks again for all of these informations. Let me check all of these.

[JKSH]

This announcement might be of interest: https://create.vi/ni-and-jki-partnering-on-package-management-in-labview-d243b13ae3a6

"Features in VIPM Pro 2023+ (Paid): NI Third Party Licensing and Activation Toolkit (TPLAT) Integration"

[Youssef Menjour]

Thank for your feed back.

 

After reading and took the time on all these point our conclusion is we will do 2 versions. Lite for free and Pro with activation licence.

So now I would like to add an activation code or an installation key to my installer for deployment.

I found a link to the Third Party Licensing and Activation Toolkit

I followed the instruction, Installed JKI VI Package Manager (VIPM) before installing the Third Party Licensing and Activation Toolkit.

However, I could not find where to start the Third Party Licensing and Activation Toolkit, and could not figure out how to use it. 😰

 

I'm not the only one with this same problem and on NI forum no answers ...

 

Is someone already use it and can help me ?

As i understood i have to use it to format my project then i'll will need to link to softwarekey solution to manage the generation and sell part of key.

Thank you for your help.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Youssef Menjour

[Antoine Chalons]

I'm not sure it's all up to date, but from the link I gave in my first response you should find all the existing doc & tutorials.

https://forums.ni.com/t5/Developer-Center-Resources/VI-Package-Manager-Licensing-a-Package/ta-p/3491276

I've never had to go through this process, but I know many people who have.

Good luck to you!

[ShaunR]

48 minutes ago, Youssef Menjour said:

I could not find where to start the Third Party Licensing and Activation Toolkit

The toolkit will lock the libraries and produce a licence file which you can browse to and select in VIPM.

49 minutes ago, Youssef Menjour said:

As i understood i have to use it to format my project then i'll will need to link to softwarekey solution to manage the generation and sell part of key.

NI have a SoftwareKey Server that they use for Tools Network offerings but you can buy and install your own from SoftwareKey.

 

Edited November 15, 2022 by ShaunR

[Youssef Menjour]

Package is installed and it's not present (after reboot)

 

Your capture is labview 2013 ...

Edited November 15, 2022 by Youssef Menjour

[Youssef Menjour]

18 hours ago, Antoine Chalons said:

I'm not sure it's all up to date, but from the link I gave in my first response you should find all the existing doc & tutorials.

https://forums.ni.com/t5/Developer-Center-Resources/VI-Package-Manager-Licensing-a-Package/ta-p/3491276

I've never had to go through this process, but I know many people who have.

Good luck to you!

Merci Antoine, it was usefull.

I finally found the solution here . Now Third Party Licensing & Activation by NI is distributed on VIPM.

The thing is documentation is not update and can be misleading.

I think NI or JKI need to update there documentation on it. There is a lot of information spread out all over the place and it's not an ease ...

[Youssef Menjour]

18 hours ago, ShaunR said:

 

NI have a SoftwareKey Server that they use for Tools Network offerings but you can buy and install your own from SoftwareKey.

 

Thank you ShaunR for the help 

Yes but if you use NI software key you'll have to pay fee to NI.
As i understood there is two different way of thinking this part

Yes, but if you use the NI software key, you will have to pay a fee to NI.
From what I understand, there are two different ways to think about this part

1 - Get started with NI 
Advantage --> Your package will be on ni.com, NI helps you directly and they manage your licensing policy.

Disadvantage: you have to pay a fee to NI (30%). I feel it exessive for long term, they are too greedy and i dont want to sell my package to expensive i will lose customers.

2 - Do it yourself

Advantage: you are free to do what you want. 
Disadvantage --> more complicated to do, not well documented.

 

[Antoine Chalons]

30 minutes ago, Youssef Menjour said:

Merci Antoine, it was usefull.

Glad I could help.
I don't think the "app store" like model is something NI is willing to invest effort on, they seem happy to let the community deal with it, from what I could see NI did the bare minimum - which is already not too bad - to give the community a reasonably good solution to handle licenses.

Again I've not used it myself, but I've seen people use, I hope it works out well for you.

I strongly encourage you to contact NI, and more specifically Nancy Henson or Eric Reffett (look them up on linkedin to see their role at NI) to give them feedback about the developer center on community.ni.com.

[ShaunR]

2 hours ago, Youssef Menjour said:

1 - Get started with NI 
Advantage --> Your package will be on ni.com, NI helps you directly and they manage your licensing policy.

Disadvantage: you have to pay a fee to NI (30%). I feel it exessive for long term, they are too greedy and i dont want to sell my package to expensive i will lose customers.

Interesting. This is could be due to their new subscription method. It might be worth finding out whether that is the case as there will be other caveats like you need to maintain a subscription

2 hours ago, Youssef Menjour said:

2 - Do it yourself

Advantage: you are free to do what you want. 
Disadvantage --> more complicated to do, not well documented.

Indeed.

I vaguely remember a third party that was offering an alternative solution that was implicitly geared towards LabVIEW and used the TPLAT. But I can't remember who it was or how it worked.

[hooovahh]

3 hours ago, ShaunR said:

I vaguely remember a third party that was offering an alternative solution that was implicitly geared towards LabVIEW and used the TPLAT. But I can't remember who it was or how it worked.

There was a couple, but I never used any of them.  I think BLT is one that meets the needs, and I think Wirebird Labs had one, but that hasn't had any update in forever.

[ShaunR]

1 hour ago, hooovahh said:

There was a couple, but I never used any of them.  I think BLT is one that meets the needs, and I think Wirebird Labs had one, but that hasn't had any update in forever.

Yes. I think it was the Studio Bods one I was thinking of. Looking at it now it seems to be geared towards executables and not sure if it will suffice for source code.

Edited November 16, 2022 by ShaunR

[studiobods]

Hello Youssef, 

 

As Shaun and Brian mentioned, BLT is a toolbox allowing you to distribute commercial LabVIEW applications with just a few easy steps. However it is limited to LabVIEW executable running on Windows. So this will not cover your need for licensing LabVIEW source code.

If you are looking to sell LabVIEW applications running as executable on Windows computers with advanced licensing scenarios, you should definitely look into BLT for LabVIEW.

You can try BLT for free with no time limitation, with all the features, and distribute 1 application on up to 5 computers. After that, there are some fees associated.

BLT does not only provide licensing features, but also auto-update capabilities, usage tracking and remote debugging tools.

 

You can get a lot of information regarding BLT for LabVIEW at https://BLTforLabVIEW.com and also by looking at the product documentation at: http://help.studiobods.com/bltforlabview

If you have any further questions feel free to send an email to contact@studiobods.com

 

Best regards. 

[Youssef Menjour]

Let’s clarify all of these information !

 

To licence you have two licencing tools (why why whyyyyyyyyy 😆)
If you choose TPLAT you'll have to generate a file *.if then protect your library then construct it. Then you'll be able to manage it 😲

It's a MESS

 

Case	Economic model	Licencing Tools	Licence management	Distribution	Construction tool	TPLAT MODE	Account
1	Through NI (70 for you /30 for NI)	NILM	NI	NI website	VIPM
							NI
2		TPLAT include construction of licence file .if	SOLO server activation free	VIPM store		Standard	softwarekey.ni.com
3	Externally (independant)	TPLAT not include construction of licence file .if (have to use Protection PLUS 5 SDK LabVIEW Edition)	SOLO server activation pay directly softwarekey	VIPM store	VIPM	Advanced	softwarekey.com

 

To resume ... it's a mess 😆

If you want to go through NI information are disparate and hard to have, document date from 2012, 2015, 2018 ... a mess

If you want to do it by yourselves it's worst because Protection PLUS 5 SDK LabVIEW Edition which is useful to generate *.if is not working (download link here) to manage licence have to create an account https://secure.softwarekey.com/

I'm actually in contact with softwarekey to solve issues ...

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Youssef Menjour

[ShaunR]

This is the process for adding licencing to addons. 

You only need "Protection PLUS 5 SDK" if you want Advanced licencing features or your own SOLO server. The licence file (*.lf) created by TPLAT can only create a licence for "Standard" and you cannot change the SOLO server location (NI's SOLO server). In advanced mode you can choose a pre-created licence file (created with LFEdit from the Protection PLUS 5 SDK) which can have a different SOLO Server URL and more advanced features.

What happens if you click on the "New to Solo Server" on the TPLAT dialogue? Is there no link to sign up? (I don't have TPLAT installed for 2022 at present).

[Youssef Menjour]

Yes already read this document.
If i apply new to solo server you will create an account on softwarekey.ni.com --> only for case 2.

The best way is to use Protection PLUS 5 SDK LabVIEW Edition to generate *.if but for now it does not work and softwarekey are aware on it. I'm waiting there feedback.

[ShaunR]

17 minutes ago, Youssef Menjour said:

Yes already read this document.
If i apply new to solo server you will create an account on softwarekey.ni.com --> only for case 2.

The best way is to use Protection PLUS 5 SDK LabVIEW Edition to generate *.if but for now it does not work and softwarekey are aware on it. I'm waiting there feedback.

In what way does it not work?

[Youssef Menjour]

I download Protection PLUS 5 SDK LabVIEW Edition. This is a labview project. But when i try to use it an error occur. (screen shot : LabVIEW 1,2)
I dont understood how it works.

(download link here)

[ShaunR]

You don't need that. That is the API that you could create TPLAT with.

This is the basic procedure

1. Create a product definition (Using LFEdit or via the Softwarekey web page).
2. Create a licence file for the product (Using LFEdit).
3. Apply the licence to the lvlib (Using TPLAT in advanced mode. This will give you a Licenced  version of your code.)
4. Point VIPM to the licence when you build the distribution (If you have the full VIPM, it can also apply it instead of using TPLAT above).

This is the full licencing process (excluding the VIPM).

You can also buy the licensing server from Softwarekey for installation on your own network, if you want everything in-house rather than using theirs (or NI's)

Edited November 23, 2022 by ShaunR

[Youssef Menjour]

 

10 hours ago, ShaunR said:

You don't need that. That is the API that you could create TPLAT with.

This is the basic procedure

1. Create a product definition (Using LFEdit or via the Softwarekey web page).
2. Create a licence file for the product (Using LFEdit).
3. Apply the licence to the lvlib (Using TPLAT in advanced mode. This will give you a Licenced  version of your code.)
4. Point VIPM to the licence when you build the distribution (If you have the full VIPM, it can also apply it instead of using TPLAT above).

This is the full licencing process (excluding the VIPM).

You can also buy the licensing server from Softwarekey for installation on your own network, if you want everything in-house rather than using theirs (or NI's)

Ok let's do it today.

On 11/16/2022 at 10:35 AM, Antoine Chalons said:

Glad I could help.
I don't think the "app store" like model is something NI is willing to invest effort on, they seem happy to let the community deal with it, from what I could see NI did the bare minimum - which is already not too bad - to give the community a reasonably good solution to handle licenses.

Again I've not used it myself, but I've seen people use, I hope it works out well for you.

I strongly encourage you to contact NI, and more specifically Nancy Henson or Eric Reffett (look them up on linkedin to see their role at NI) to give them feedback about the developer center on community.ni.com.

As soon as i have time i'll will contact them and make feedback. The problem is there is too much disparate document and all are not updated and miss a lot of information.

 

 

[Youssef Menjour]

Ni just modify my resume and i have a point with them today.

 

 

Edited November 24, 2022 by Youssef Menjour

[ShaunR]

Yes. NILM cannot create the icence file. But TPLAT can (standard only).

If you change the" licencing tool" to TPLAT instead of NILM for #3, then you have what everyone else had before they invented NILM and their subscription model without requiring Protection Plus (using the NI Licence Server under #3 Account).

Edited November 24, 2022 by ShaunR