FossLock is a simple copy protection library intended for use by ISV's distributing closed-source applications or possibly by enterprises wishing to maintain control over use of internal applications.

It includes a web-based license management app, and supports several different license activation mechanisms, including automatic web-activation.

A goal of this project, from the beginning, was to run both on Microsoft's .NET framework, as well as on the Mono framework. As such, it has built in functionality for detecting hardware on both MS-Windows and Linux.

This project is nowhere near complete at the current time. Check back or contribute some code. This has been a side-project for me for quite some time... unfortunately, I just haven't had the time to pour into getting it done, as it's a decent sized project. There are currently a few issues existing mostly dealing with the HardwareFingerprint project, if anyone has interest in seeing this finished up more quickly, you could take a look at and submit some merge requests.

FossLock is a simple copy protection system intended for use by Independent Software Vendors, distributing .NET-based applications.

There are 2 major components of the application

• FossLock.Web
• FossLock.Client

FossLock.Web is an ASP.NET MVC 4 application and Web API for entering licensing information. The Web API component is used by FossLock.Client for web activation of licenses.

FossLock.Client is a class library that you embed with your assemblies.
The main job of FossLock.Client is to collect hardware information validate licensing information and possibly (depending on configuration) to communicate with FossLock.Web.

We all love open source software. Sometimes, however, it's not possible/permissible for whatever reason. When it comes to .NET applications that need to have their installation base limited, you're generally left with two options--build your own or purchase a 3rd party licensing system, which may cost more than small ISV's have the resources for.

This is where FossLock fits into the picture. It allows you to generate hardware fingerprints (FossLock.HardwareFingerprint) from the target machines, post them back to a licensing server (FossLock.Client) (called an 'unlock request') and then generated license file (from FossLock.Web) is downloaded back on the target machine and can be validated (again by FossLock.Client)

The idea for this project originally came from ActiveLock, which I had personally used in a small project a few years back. It hasn't been updated, and the codebase is fairly messy.. I originally planned on contributing some commits back to the project.. before eventually just deciding on building a fresh system with some of the basic ideas borrowed from that project, but a completely new code based.

FossLock is designed to be modified to whatever your needs are. This is not meant to be an as-is solution to every need out there... think of it more in terms of a customizable framework..

Out the gate it comes with Entity Framework 6 as it's persistance layer, meaning that your web server can store data anywhere that has a driver supporting EF (MSSQL, MySQL, PostGres, Oracle, SQLite3, etc).

The entity model is using code-first and automatic migrations so feel free to customize the models and deploy your own version of the database.

On top of that, EF is not directly accessed by anything but a repository (FossLock.DAL) that encapsulates EF-specific logic. Need to store you data in a CSV or something else weird? Create your own repository, modify the dependency injection container and you're done.

Validation is handled by a separate service layer (FossLock.BLL).

FossLock.HardwareFingerprint and FossLock.Client are to be embedded with your application. HardwareFingerprint generates a unique identification based on the hardware reported by the operating system. FossLock.Client will validate any perviously-existing license on the system against the fingerprint. If can also generate unlock requests and communicate with FossLock.Web to automatically pull new licenses if required.

For the web license manager,

• Here's how you get started--wait for this to get done or contribute some code.

Copyright (c) 2012-2014, Derek J. Curtis, Greg F. Martin, Ethan K. Hall All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

• Derek J. Curtis
• Greg F. Martin
• Ethan K. Hall

• FossLock.Web
  • Web-based license manager app.
  • Built on ASP.NET MVC 4.
  • Provides API for automated web-activation.

• FossLock.Core
  • Library containing 'core' data types.
  • Fancy way of saying it contains lots of enum definitions.
• FossLock.Model
  • POCO entity classes.
• FossLock.DAL
  • Data access library.
  • Currently only supports entity framework.
  • Includes DbContext class and fluent type configurations.
• FossLock.BLL
  • Service layer library.
  • Applies business validation rules and communicates between FossLock.Web and FossLock.DAL

• FossLock.Client
  • Library to be embedded with your deployed application.
  • Handled authorizing
• FossLock.LicenseHandler
  • .. not really sure what we were originally thinking here.
  • Looks like this can probably die, as FossLock.Client likely handles what this was supposed to.
• FossLock.HardwareFingerprint
  • Library for generating hardware identifiers.
  • Supports both Windows and Linux.
• FossLock.Test.*
  • These assemblies represent the test suite for FossLock.
  • The third part of the identifier will match an assembly within the rest of the project.
  • Tests are named based on the following convention: filename.testtype (ex, unit tests for FossLock.BLL.Service.GenericService.cs can be found in FossLock.Test.BLL.GenericService_UnitTests.cs)