The licensing scheme for DMX has led to a number of requests for clarification. This page is to help clarify a number of points. The licensing was designed to help sustain the growth of the module as well as allowing 3rd parties to benefit by growing a market based on the product. There are a number of key elements you should be aware of regarding the license: DNN installations vs portals, licenses vs activations, partial source code, redistribution, and service, support and software expiration.

DNN Installations vs portals

DotNetNuke® allows you to run many portals (i.e. websites) on a single instance. This is called portal virtualization. The sites appear to come from different places, but underneath they’re all the same code. This is a major feature of DNN and you can benefit from this if you’re delivering hosted services to customers. The installation is managed by the ‘host’ or superuser account. He or she also installs the modules and other extensions. So an installed module will, in principle, run on all your portals. Now there are companies that provide DNN portals on installations that are running literally thousands of portals. This has prompted some module (and especially skinning) developers to limit the license to a single portal. Although we also wanted to tap into more revenue from those running massive installations, we don’t want to squelch that business model either with a ‘per portal’ license. Therefore the decision was made to cap at 25. The regular DMX license allows for a maximum of 25 portals using DMX.

Licenses vs activations

The license you buy permits you to use DMX in a production environment. Most customers, however, need to also test the site before going to production. By default we permit this type of installation on the same license as the production server. Because every DMX needs to be activated to work, you get a default of 2 activations upon purchase of the product; one for the staging server, one for production. If you feel you need more activations, please contact us by email with an explanation and we can increase your counter. Note there are two licenses that provide unlimited activations (i.e. you no longer need to pass through us): the enterprise and OEM licenses. Finally, when addressed through http://localhost the module works fully without the need for activation. This was done to help developers use it on their local machine.

Partial source code

DMX consists of a number of code libraries that are installed to your bin directory. Some of these libraries are closed source (i.e. no source for resale). Others are part of the so-called partial source distribution. These are the current libraries:

The Bring2mind.DNN.Modules.DMX.dll project contains all the codebehind files of the module. Having access to this code means that (1) you’ll have more power to adapt the UI and (2) you can see how the DMX front-end UI interacts with the core library placing you in a better position to create your own custom solutions based on this product.

Redistribution

Many of our customers are what’s known as ‘integrators’. They design and deliver websites for companies and (very wisely) use DotNetNuke® to accomplish their goal. We actively encourage this. In most cases the license will be in the name of the integrator as they provide the maintenance of the site as well. This is not an issue for us. Do note that if you need to transfer your license you need to contact us so we can make sure all notification emails are sent to the right email address. This can only be done for the communications that come directly from us. The reseller channels (like DNN MarketPlace and Snowcovered) have their own user management.

For the ‘unlimited installation’ licenses note that we need to regulate this part. The enterprise license is meant for large companies that use the module in multiple places. The OEM license is designed for those that want to embed the module in their own redistributed product. The latter is only possible if the final product is a prepackaged solution and the module is not sold separately, nor advertised as DMX, Document Exchange, etc. In other words: it’s fine as long as you don’t compete with our primary business.

Service, support and expiration

Since DMX 4 there is a subscription model underlying the DMX licensing that is quite common in the software industry: you buy the product once and pay some renewal fee to keep receiving upgrades. In the case of DMX you get a year of support and upgrades with your license. After this period you’ll be prompted to renew the license so you can keep receiving the upgrades. If you do not wish to renew rest assured your installation will keep on working. Once activated, the product will run forever (unless it is a trial license). But if you wish to install upgrades you need to have an ‘active’ license (i.e. one in which the service period has not expired). There is one caveat in this model and that is that DNN has no UI feedback during module installation to support this feature (we’re actively working with the DNN core team to get more support for this in the core). So you need to check the dates yourself when you upgrade DMX (this is normally also mentioned in the release message). DMX will show the date when the service period runs out to the admin when it nears. You can also see it when you go to the license page.

Summary of license versions

Bring2mind offers the following palette of licenses for DMX:

If you have any questions about the licensing, don’t hesitate to contact us: info@bring2mind.net.