Licensing Models, Architecture & Core Concepts
A strategic and architectural guide for Tech Leads, Solution Architects, and Product Managers designing software monetization, entitlement enforcement, and device governance.
Licensing Models Decision Framework
Vyntech Licenses natively supports the five dominant monetization topologies. You can configure any model per product or mix models across different tiers:
Best for: Recurring revenue products, monthly/annual B2B software.
Mechanism:Time-bounded key with sliding lease heartbeats (e.g. 24h). Offers automated offline grace periods (e.g. 7-14 days) so users traveling on planes don't get locked out while ensuring non-paying customers lapse automatically.
Best for: Air-gapped enterprise software, medical/industrial appliances, lifetime desktop tools.
Mechanism: Never-expiring cryptographic certificates (expires_at = null). Bound to optional major version gates (e.g., valid for v3.x only).
Best for: High-value creative suites, CAD/3D software, proprietary developer tools.
Mechanism: Binds each active license key strictly to the device's cryptographic hardware fingerprint. Enforces max_activations limits to eliminate illegal license sharing.
Best for: Enterprise teams sharing expensive software seats (e.g. 50 engineers sharing 10 active seats).
Mechanism: An application requests a lease upon opening and relinquishes it upon closing. Real-time lease reclamation prevents orphaned seat deadlocks.
Domain Entities & Hierarchy
The licensing domain is designed with clean domain-driven separation, ensuring zero coupling between billing tiers and application runtime code:
The Application Catalog Root
Represents a software product (e.g., "Vyntech Studio"). Owns the Ed25519 cryptographic keypair used to digitally sign all license certificates.
Granular Capability Toggles & Quotas
Feature definitions supporting boolean flags (export_4k = true), numeric quotas (max_projects = 100), or enum strings (tier = "enterprise").
Commercial Packaging Tiers
Pre-configured bundles (e.g. Starter, Professional, Enterprise) grouping default features, duration days, and maximum seat activations.
Customer Entitlement Instance
An issued license key associated with an organization. Inherits default plan entitlements while allowing custom enterprise overrides without altering the base plan.
Active Device Leases
Tracks individual physical and virtual machines with their hardware fingerprint, client version, IP address, and sliding heartbeat lease expiration.
Online Cloud vs. Offline Air-Gapped Deployments
How Vyntech Licenses handles both modern connected SaaS applications and isolated, zero-trust military or banking intranets:
| Feature & Capability | Online Cloud-Connected | Offline Air-Gapped (.vynlic) |
|---|---|---|
| Network Requirement | Standard Internet Access | 100% Zero Internet Required |
| Verification Method | High-speed REST API ping | Local Ed25519 Public Key Verification |
| Seat Capacity Tracking | Centralized PostgreSQL Lease Pool | Cryptographically bound hardware hash |
| Revocation Speed | Instantaneous (Next Heartbeat) | Certificate expiration / periodic token replacement |
| Feature Flag Updates | Real-time sync on heartbeat | Re-issue signed .vynlic certificate file |