How do you copy protect extensions?

Developers
1

I am interested to know how people copy protect their extensions outside of the Extension Warehouse.
I have customers that want to buy my extensions directly from me, or from another site.
I’d also like to explore subscription licensing, which the EW does not offer.
I’m hoping this can be done with Ruby alone, to avoid the complications of using C…
Any ideas welcome!

2

You can use the sign tool: Sign Extension | SketchUp Extension Warehouse
Or, use something else to encrypt your ruby code…

3

That will stop somebody from seeing my code, but what stops them from installing the same copy of my extension onto 100 computers?
I guess I’m asking: How do you identify each unique computer &/or copy of SketchUp?

4

Instead of the ‘standard’ licensing set up you need to have your own…
or use one like the sketchucation.com licensing system…

5

I see, sorry, didn’t read the question well enough I believe now I reread it.
The answer is: you can use anything you want honestly. To copy protect from machine to machine, you would need some way to generate a unique id for each machine and you would need some mechanism to detect if a machine is licensed .

I have ended up creating my own licensing service, which is used by myself for licensing sketchup extensions as well as other standalone desktop apps, and, is also used by other parties to license their software.

If you are interested in more info, feel free to reach out.

1 Like
6

Thanks, Tig!
Can you point me to a tutorial/examples on using the SketchUcation API?
I had a look around there but couldn’t find very much.

7

I’m interested in hearing more. Can you email me directly?