With the software nearing completion (or at least nearing a potential commercial rollout) I now require an End User License Agreement to provide any potential users.
Where to Start:
When it comes to writing a license agreement, I wasn’t sure where to start exactly so I spent some time reading EULA’s provided by other software vendors (You know, those pages and pages of text most people skip over when installing software).
Needless to say this was a painful process.
Search Engines to the Rescue:
With a rough idea of what was required, the next step was to find additional resources to help clarify the details. This post on the Avangate website provided a useful overview, highlighting four of the most important parts of an End User License Agreement.
- Licensing
- Warranties
- Liability
- Laws
Preparing the EULA:
With additional research, I prepared a short list of items I would need to cover. This is by no means a comprehensive list, however it appears to have highlighted the most important aspects that are relevant.
Licensing:
Need to establish the rights you want to grant the user.
- Do users have intellectual rights over software, or is it simply licensed for use?
- Do users have the right to on-sell their license?
- Do users have the right to reverse-engineer, redistribute, copy, clone, modify or alter the software?
- How many terminals/computers/users can benefit from the license?
- How long may users use the software for?
- Do users have the rights to updates?
Warranties:
The EULA should have a Disclaimer of Warranty. One example might be to state even if the software is most likely to work on a user’s machine it may as well not, and it is not your fault.
Liability:
State the extent to which you can be held financially responsible for any mishaps.
Laws:
Define the jurisdiction of the license, and any governing laws related to the software and distribution of the software.
Draft EULA Complete:
Using the points outlined above I have completed a draft EULA related to annually licensed software. I am in the process of getting additional feedback, and have approached a Lawyer to help ensure I have all the relevant points covered for developing software in New Zealand that I would like to license globally.
Sjones Limited EULA – Annual Software License – Draft 1 (PDF)
Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will have a final version complete and ready, at which point I will be able to complete an installation package of the Terian ID Software.
Journey from Code to Sales 