Product License Information
This page explains what the ‘(Product) License Registration Name(s)’ in the ‘Account Settings’ section of the My Account’ page are for, as-well as how our licensing system basically works.
Important (Legal Disclaimer)
It is important to know and understand that this page/document is not an license agreement for any project or product! This is just a explanation/manual on how our licenses, product and serial keys work, how to obtain them and how the data (when registering names) is used. Nor will this document ever invalidate any license restrictions from any project or product license agreement. If a license agreement which comes with a project or product ‘contradicts’ a statement on this page, then always assume that the license agreement for that project or product is the valid and active license and not this page!
How to get licenses
Licenses are mainly intended for patrons and for users whom have received a (product) license directly from us. If you aren’t a Patron and you didn’t received an license from us directly, then you do not need to enter ANY data in the ‘Patreon Edition Registration Name’ and ‘Professional and Business Edition Registration Name’ fields! We even recommend you to not enter any data in these fields until you are actually ready to start using product licenses. This simply because when you’ve entered/submitted a registration name in one of these fields (or both), you can’t change this registered name anymore.
WARNING: Think twice or even thrice when entering and submitting a name for registration
We just told you already that you can’t change the registered license name(s) anymore once you’ve submitted them, but we want to make sure that we don’t get messages like ‘But I didn’t knew it was a permanent-onetime-registration!’. Because we will not change your registered name(s) for such reasons! So yet again: Double check everything while entering and before submitting your registration name(s)! Because you can only enter them once! So make sure that you make NO MISTAKES, that the spelling is correct etc, and thus that you’ve entered the name(s) correctly. Changing these names can only be done up-on request by contacting us directly through the contact form and only if there is absolutely a valid reason to do so (more about that further on).
Privacy
When you enter personal details in the ‘Patreon Edition Registration Name’ and ‘Professional and Business Edition Registration Name’ fields, like your real name for example, they will be stored on our server so that the server is actually able to generate your product/license keys. These will however be stored in separate database fields which will not be used/read for anything else except your license/product keys. It is however important that you are (still) agreeing with our Privacy Policy before you enter ANY personal information in these fields! Which is also one of the reasons why you had to accept our privacy policy upon registering (Licenses can only be obtained when you have an registered account on our website).
Note: When you have obtained an Maker-space license or an Educational license from us you only need to use the Professional and Business Edition Registration Name field. The Patreon Edition Registration Name field will not be used for these licenses.
Registration name uses
The License Registration names which can be found in the Account Settings section will only be used for generating your product/license keys which can be found at the XNL Licenses section in your account. These licenses can then be used (depending on the product of course) to register products and unlock certain features. Next to this the registered product will often show that it’s registered to you.
Here are some examples on how that might look:
For Patreon Editions:
XEWA Patreon Edition 1.0
Registered to: John Doe
For Professional Editions:
XEWA Professional 1.0
Registered to: John Doe’s Repairs
For Business/Enterprise Editions:
XEWA Business 1.0
Registered to: John Doe’s Repairs (Sales)
An visual example of how an product registration might look like:
NOTE: You do NOT need to enter the department/division like the ‘sales’ example for the Business or Enterprise Edition above! With the Business and Enterprise editions you can enter the department/division per installation without requiring you to generate a new license key!
Registering protected (brand)names
We have protected certain names, brand-names and company names from being registered and/or claimed. This means that if you enter one of these ‘protected names‘ that the website will refuse to register it on your account. If you are the legal owner of the name or an official representative for the brand or company, then you can contact us directly via our contact form (while being logged-in to your account!) and we will register the name(s) after everything checks out.
Registration name abuse
If we receive any complaints or when we notice any abuse of users abusing brand-names, company names or any other legal trademark or entity name, we will take action against this as soon as possible. This will most-likely (at-least) result in a permanent ban of your entire account (and thus also you losing access to all your licenses, ‘unlocks’ etc).
License registration name changes limitations
Please do note that we will not change ‘randomly chosen nicknames‘ into yet another ‘randomly chosen nickname’. For example a request like:
‘Well my previous nickname was CapacitorBlaster23422 and now it is CapacitorBlaster2022, can you please change it?’ will NOT be processed.
If you ‘way in the past’ have registered with ‘some random gamer/nick-name‘ and would now like to start using it for more serious related projects and thus change it to your real name or business name for example, then we will consider your request. Same goes for situations where your business name has (legally) changed.
No online activation or ‘calling-home’ features
Our projects and product do not use ‘online activation mechanisms’ or ‘calling-home’ “features”. Firstly because we don’t want that our users are depending on our servers staying online indefinitely. So even if we ever decide to ‘phase-out’ a certain project or product, you will still be able to activate it with your license (given that you’ve saved your license/serial keys locally of course). Neither do we use ‘home-calling’ “features” because we have no need to invade your privacy with such ‘lame functions’. The only ‘home-calling’ functions which some projects or products might have is a simple php (website) request (which will NOT be logged by the way) to do a version check, so that it can check for updates on your request or per your settings.
Does this introduce a (bit) more risk of ‘leaked serial keys’ or ‘key-generators’? Yes of course it does. But lets be honest: No matter how much time and money you’ll spend (read: waste) on developing ‘super-duper-fancy secure activation servers’, there will always be someone whom will find a ‘workaround’ or someone whom will release a crack for it. So why waste valuable time and money which could be spend on actually making more content, better projects, products and features?
Most of our projects and products already have ‘full functionality’ while being free (of charge), with some additional functions and/or features for those whom support our platform(s) through Patreon for example. Well if there are a couple of ‘cheap pricks’ (to put it bluntly) which rather have an ‘out-dated’ (or soon to be out-dated) version, which (if cracked) potentially holds malicious malware instead of actually supporting the content and project(s) by pledging something like €2, €5 or €10 on our Patreon and then getting those versions as rewards as thank you for their support? Well be my/our guest, I hope they “enjoy” their “illegal version”, I/we rather spend time on the content and projects which are appreciated by our supporters and fans instead of whining about a few ‘cheap rotten apples’ 🙂
But what about those (possible) ‘sponsor banners’ in the projects/products/apps?!!!
No worries, IF a project, product or application has a (or multiple) sponsor banner(s), then these are ‘baked-in’ to that release. This means that they are ‘build into the software’ itself, and not ‘pulled from the internet’. IF such banners appear then it is because the project, product or application is actually sponsored by direct sponsors whom support(ed) the project, and for most project/products you can actually ‘disable’ these banners if you have an registered version 🙂
Well I have an (very) old version of a project or product, which has ‘sponsor banners’ but when I click on it, the link doesn’t work (anymore)
Yeah, euhm, well that is one of the ‘down-sides’ of ‘build-in-banners’: They can’t and won’t be updated. So that also means that even if for example the ‘sponsoring company’ has been “long gone” their banner will still remain in the released version. This is by the way also one of the reasons why we don’t allow ‘temporary discount banners’ (to promote product sale prices from the sponsors) in our projects/products or applications. Because these banners will ‘forever be in that specific version’, and thus also long after the ‘sale has ended’.
Requesting a license key change
Due to the way I’ve designed the license/product/serial key system, it is not possible to request a new serial key if for example you’ve discovered that your license key for a certain product version has been leaked by someone whom had your license key. With previous projects and products this was possible because for all registrations the license keys and their registered combinations where stored on one of our servers. When building this new platform I’ve decided to ditch the whole license and activation servers system, this for example to ensure that the projects and products would stay activatable even if for some reason the website goes down (permanently). With the new license system it is also no longer required to have an internet connection to activate your project or product. It however is important that you do save your license key(s) locally on your computer, so that IF a project, a product or even the ‘entire website’ might ever go offline, that you can still activate your project or product without having to login to your account on our website(s).
Due to this system which uses an ‘custom algorithm’, it is however not possible to just ‘re-generate’ a new license key for one of your registered projects/products. When we would need to re-generate a license key (range), it would basically mean this would re-generate all license keys for all users for EVERY project / product in that version range. Meaning that if we for example decided to ‘re-generate’ the license key(s) for Product A version 1.0, that this would also re-generate ALL the licenses for ever other product which is also in the Version 1.x range.
Therefor we will not use this system unless absolutely necessary, because it would ‘inconvenience’ A LOT of users when doing so. I did included a ‘license key reset/re-generation system’, just as a ‘back-up-plan’ in case it might ever be needed, but I/we will not use it unless absolutely necessary.
So due to this system it is not possible to just re-generate one license key for just one user. Which is also one of the reasons that it is very important that you realize that it is your responsibility to keep your license keys(s) safe!
Project/Product License types
Currently we have several different license types in our system: Patreon Edition, Professional Edition, Business Edition/Enterprise Edition, Educational Edition, Maker-space Edition and Beta Tester Team Edition.
The Patreon Edition is the ‘smallest’ license and will be awarded to users whom are member of my Hologram Drone Tier (Tier 2) and higher.
The Professional Edition is the ‘standard’ license and will be awarded to users whom are member of my Drone Mini-Factory Tier (Tier 3) and higher.
And the Business Edition or Enterprise Edition the license which will be awarded to users whom are member of my Frontline A.I. HUB Tier (Tier 4) and higher.
If you are member of a certain tier, you will also unlock the licenses the previous/lower tiers. Meaning that if you for example have the “Professional Edition tier”, that you automatically also unlock the Patreon Edition.
(More about the Educational Edition and Maker-space edition later)
The differences between these licenses are obviously project and product dependent. For some projects or products there can be ‘quite a lot of difference’ between the Patreon Edition (Tier2) and the Business Edition (Tier 4), while for other (often smaller) projects or products there might be no difference at all. For the differences per license type for a certain project or product you should always consult the page(s) which belong to said project or product.
However for most projects and product I/we make, all functions are often available for free (as in free of charge), where certain features will just expand their capabilities when you have a license/product key.
NOTE: There is no option to apply for (or request a) Beta Tester Team Edition License or status. We mainly use this license type internally or can assign (external) people to this license if they are testing certain projects or products for us.
Why licenses via Patreon
The reason(s) why I’ve decided to do this license system for my/our patrons is very simple, the projects and products are mostly already free (of charge). And by ‘building-in’ extra features for Patrons I can give some extra ‘thank you’ in return to my/our patrons while the patrons (you) help me/us by contributing to our content with your pledges 🙂
Will I lose my license when I stop supporting on Patreon or downgrade my pledge?
NOPE! If you have for example unlocked a license for Product A Professional Version 1.0, then you will just keep that (Professional) license when you downgrade your pledge or even stop pledging completely. Want to hear something even better?
If you pledged at the Drone Mini-Factory Tier (Tier 3), and due to that obtained the license for Product A Professional 1.0, and then later on stop your pledge. You will still be able to update throughout the WHOLE major version 1.x.x
This means that even if you pledged at version 1.0 and then stopped pledging a while later, and after you’ve stopped pledging I would release version 1.5, you will still be able to upgrade or install it with your existing license/product key(s).
If then later-on Product A Professional Version 2.0 would be released, then you will NOT be able to upgrade until you’ve made a new pledge of the required tier for the professional version. BUT if you at that moment are still a member of the ‘lower’ tier (Hologram Drone), you will be able to install the Product A Patreon Edition Version 2.0.
What might also be a ‘nice to know’, is that if you for example have pledged to tier 4 (Frontline A.I. HUB) and have received a Business Edition License of a certain product, then you will ALSO receive all ‘lower licenses’ for that same project or product 🙂
This basically means:
If you pledged at Frontline A.I. HUB (Tier 4) you will receive the Business / Enterprise Edition license, the Professional Edition License AND the Patreon Edition license! 🙂
What If I had a license for Version 1.0, then stopped pledging and just now discovered you’ve already released version 4.5?
Well no worries, just login with your account, make sure your Patreon is linked to your account on our website, and then pledge the amount you want (and want the version for). Then you will automatically get ALL licenses from 1.0 till the latest version! 😀 (But of course only for the edition(s) you’ve pledged for)
Wait, what? So If I had version 1.0, and then later pledge again for version 4 or so, I will also get all the older licenses??
Yes, and even better: You will always get access to the older licenses even if you ‘just started out’ at version 4, you will still get all the other licenses which where released earlier (But of course only for the edition(s) you’ve pledged for).
But is it safe to use these older licenses/versions if you’ve released newer/updated versions?
Well obviously we do not recommend you using out-dated software, because out-dated software can have bugs, security issues or missing features. But some people might actually need older versions of software from time to time when there are for example compatibility issues. Do note though that using out-dated software is 100% at your own responsibility and at your own risk! I/We just want to make sure that if people prefer (for what ever reason) an older version of a product, that they can actually use that version for that particular task.
But again (to summarize): No you will not invalidate your license if you already have unlocked it in your account. These licenses/product keys are ‘gifts’ and tokens of appreciation to my/our patrons, and lets be honest: “You can’t (SHOULD NOT!) take back gifts!” 😉 Right?
Can I share my license/product key with ‘my friend’?
This is a bit of an grey-area, but we DO actually allow you to share your Patreon Edition license/product keys with your friend(s). HOWEVER this should only be done with real-life/close friends and just a few. Why do we say ‘real-life friends’? Well because it is NOT allowed to share one license among forum users/friends or a “Distant Facebook friend” for example. We do encourage people to work on project together with friends, and If you have a friend which can’t afford to pledge for example, we definitely don’t mind you sharing your license key with one or two friends. However considering that most of my/our projects and products don’t really require the license/product keys to be (‘fully’) functional, it would be recommended to just keep the license/product keys to yourself unless it’s absolutely necessary for your project to share it with your friend(s). The ‘allowed to share with friends rule’ however only applies to the Patreon edition! The license terms for Professional, Business / Enterprise Editions, Educational Editions and the Beta Tester Team Editions are disclosed in the official project and product licenses!
Can I use other methods like Paypal to get license keys?
No sorry, (currently) we only support Patreon to unlock all perks & rewards on our platform(s) (which also includes possible license keys). If we would start accepting such unlocks via all kinds of other platforms like Paypal, then this would introduce a massive overhead of financial administration, paper work etc. Now Patreon takes care of all pledge related VAT (taxes) per country/region, and we only have to take care of our income taxes. If we would have to start handling this additional overhead ourselves then it would almost become a full-time day-job, and thus severely impact the content production and such (due to time limitations).
Can I also pledge/donate a lower amount to buy just one of the licenses?
No, sorry this is not possible, and it’s also very unlikely that this will ever become an option. So you can for example not ‘offer a smaller donation’ to get just “one specific’ license/product key for ‘just one Professional Edition’. The main reason for this is that you aren’t actually just buying the license or product keys! You get these keys and the (small extra) features they unlock as one of the perks from being a (Patreon) supporter. These perks are not sold separately in any way. Products or licenses which can actually be purchased are not part of the community program(s) or the Patreon perks at all (these are mostly licenses for custom projects).
- But I only want/need the Professional Edition of “project/product A“, I don’t need the Patreon Edition and neither do I want/need the license product keys for “Project/Product B“, “Project/Product C” and “Project/Product D“
Well this might sound ‘harsh’ but I would have to reply with “To bad”. I/we do not offer any other optional methods of obtaining these keys, and neither do we offer any options to obtain them separately. If you for example pledge at the tier which would unlock the Professional Edition licenses, then this will unlock ALL projects/products which are eligible for this tier. And if this means that you will unlock keys for Project/Product A, Project/Product B, Project/Product C etc. while you only ‘wanted/needed’ Project/Product A, then just don’t use the other keys 😉
Please realize that if I/we would make ‘full retail products’ of these projects/products, that it would need to turn into a ‘fully dedicated development plan’ for these (then commercial) products. It would require fully dedicated support, scheduled releases, and a lot more legal work which would get involved with it etc etc. And thus this would rank up the costs significantly. Which is why most of these projects & products are actually free of charge and just have (a few) extra ‘unlock-able features’ for people whom support our platform, content and projects 🙂
Pledges/Donations/Memberships are not ‘just’ for the license / ‘product’ keys
Please keep in mind that the pledges/memberships are not just purchases of licenses or product keys! Like explained before several times, the pledges or donations are your support/contribution to the entire platform in it’s whole (and we’re grateful for that support of course), but the license / ‘product’ keys you might unlock with them are just a one of the perks and/or rewards as a thank you for your support. Obviously different Patreon support tiers also include different rewards. Like for example special features on the website like disabling ad’s on the website, Patreon only polls/votes, early access, fan recognition and more of the alike. Which should also make it quite obvious that the ‘pledge amount’ is not just dedicated to these ‘license extra’s’.
I (Rico) personally suspect that most of you amazing supporters did already understood this, but I did wanted to mention this to make sure that everyone understands this.
Are the licenses/product keys ‘tax deductible’ for my business?
No (at least most-likely) they are not. For the very simple reason (like explained before) that your pledge amount is not just for the licenses, the pledges also include (lots of) other features which might or might not be eligible for such deductions. These licenses and the features which they unlock are just a ‘little extra’ for my/our supporters and fans. You pledge to our Patreon to support us in making content which includes the video’s, blog posts/articles and more of the alike. Consider it as something like what many other Patreon content creators do: They give you access to their Discord server, or give you a ‘special set of icons’ or text colors in a Discord server. Well instead of giving ‘yet another discord server’ as reward, I decided to give extra features in my/our own projects and products instead. So basically consider these the ‘Discord perks’ as you might see on many other Patreon Creator pages. So it can be very difficult to determine if these are tax (or VAT) deductible. It might be that a ‘broken-down-portion’ of the pledge you make is deductible (or not), however I’m not an accountant or tax specialist, and if it is important for you to know if you can deduct the pledges (or part of them) from your taxes, you should consult a professional (accountant) in regards to this. Doing so (or not) is fully your own responsibility.
I’ve updated/reinstalled but now my License/Product Key says it’s blocked!
Well that basically just happens for only two reasons, one is that you’ve upgraded the ‘major version’ of the program (for example from version 1.4 to version 2.0), if this is the case then skip this section and please read the next paragraph 🙂
The other possible reason is (if you have NOT upgraded to a newer major version and for example updated version 1.1.0 to version 1.4.0), that you most likely have seriously ‘messed-up’ and “didn’t played by the rules”. Like explained before: We don’t use sophisticated privacy violating activation servers, we do allow users of Patreon Editions to share their license (with a few) friends etc. BUT If we notice abuse of our generous license system by people whom are for example ‘posting and sharing license keys’ online…. Yes then we will indeed block certain license keys within our next update so that those can not (ever!) be used anymore in future versions. So just be kind, respect the rules, and it will all be just fine 🙂 And thus if your license/product key is indeed ‘hard-coded-blocked’ or rejected when reinstalling or updating within the same major version, then it’s very likely that we’ve ‘found’ your license key ‘scattered on the internet’ on a forum for example.
If this happens and you are very certain that this is not the case, then make sure to contact us directly and we will see if we can resolve this issue. If it however turns out that you (or your ‘friend’ whom you shared you key with!) have published your license key publicly, we will NOT grant you a new key for the current (major) version. If we however keep seeing violations, or when we notice multiple violations at once (as in you’ve published all the keys from your account publicly for example), then it’s very likely that we will completely ban your account permanently.
I’ve upgraded and now it says my license key is no longer valid for (this version)!
That is indeed very well possible, and will mainly happen when you upgrade for example from version 1.2 to version 2.0. The ‘first digit’ of a version number is called the ‘Major Version’, every time we update the major version (which often means that major changes or additions to the software have been made), you will also need to enter a new license/serial/product key.
But how do I get this new key then?
Well if you are (still) a Patron of the ‘required tier’ for that edition (Patreon Edition, Professional Edition, Business Edition etc), you can just go to your My Account page and click on XNL Licenses in the menu. You can then select the version number for the project or product you need the (new) license key for and it will automatically be generated instantly for your account. You can then enter the new license key in your new version.
But I’m no longer a Patreon or I have lowered my pledge, what now?
Well then you still have a few options:
– You can use the edition which ‘matches’ your current membership/pledge (if applicable). For example if your current tier ‘only rewards’ the Patreon Edition while previously you got the Professional Edition due to your previous tier, the you can just ‘downgrade’ your software/product to the Patreon Edition for the new version. This would not require you to make an extra pledge or to upgrade your pledge.
– You can ‘raise your pledge’ to obtain the new version of the same ‘edition’ as you had before (Professional Edition in this example). You do however only need to do this once (for one pledge/payment/month) and then the new version is permanently activated on your account for the entire lifetime of the major version number.
– If you don’t want (or can’t) pledge to upgrade to the new (major) version you can also decide to ‘downgrade’ your edition to the Free Version (non ‘registered’).
– You can also decide to keep using the old version. This however is in most cases not recommended, because major version upgrades often mean that a lot of new features have been implemented, lots of (possibly security) bugs have been fixed and more of the alike. However when we release a new version it will not invalidate previous versions. Support however often does not carry on (much longer) for older/out-dated versions!
Different Products, Different Releases and License Keys
Each project and/or product which use license, product or serial keys have their own (unique) Serial code/registration combination. Which basically means that you will unlock a (new) license, product or serial key for each product version individually when it has been released. Of course the type (edition) of license you will unlock depends on your current active Patreon tier.
Upgrading Editions (within the same Major version number)
If you for example had a Patreon Edition of Product A Version 1.5 and you want to upgrade it to the Professional Edition Version 1.5, then you can just upgrade your Patreon Tier to the required tier ([xnl_patreon_tiername id=3] (Tier 3) for Professional), and the Professional Edition will (also) unlock in your account. If you only upgraded your tier to get the Professional Edition but don’t intend to stay pledged to this tier, you can just downgrade your pledge to your previous tier again. You will then not lose your ‘upgraded’ license, the system will ‘remember’ that you had already obtained the license.
IMPORTANT: When just ‘temporarily upgrading your pledge’ to obtain the new license, you will HAVE to login to our website and ‘retrieve’ your new (upgraded license) from your account BEFORE lowering your pledge on the Patreon website again! If you only go to the Patreon website, then upgrade your pledge, and then downgrade it again without logging in here and obtaining your license, then it is possible that our system will not be able to recognize and assign your new license!
I’m banned, how can I get my license/product/serial keys back??
Very bluntly put? You don’t. If you have been banned due to bad behavior, violating our terms and conditions or any other reason, you will no longer be able to login to obtain your (or new) licenses! If you have written-down/stored your license, product or serials keys on your own computer locally, then you will still be able to use them for the version(s) you already had them for. You will however not be able to install newer versions with those same license keys because each new major version would require you to get a new license key from your (now banned) account.
So if you just ‘play by the rules’ and be a nice guy/gal on here, it’s all fine. If you’re known for getting easily banned: Save your license keys locally to keep them after getting banned because there is no way in getting them back after you’re banned. Or even better: Try to be a better person and just don’t get banned. 😉
I ‘bought’ the license for this product and I ‘demand’ support or ‘special treatment’
Well with such attitude: Tough luck! It’s not going to work like that, and especially not with that attitude.
Firstly: Like explained several times now: You did not bought any product/license! You got it for free as a reward/thank you for your support to my/our platform!
Secondly: I/we try to help everyone where we can, but you do need to understand that these products (well projects as you might have seen me use project/product almost everywhere!) are just ONE of the projects I’m/we’re working on. We try to do our best to deliver the best quality on every end of the platform, but you do have to realize that most of the stuff published is just a “one man or one woman job”. Some parts we do work together on a project, release or publication where other projects, products or publications are the sole work of one individual of our team. And maintaining all that, plus the platform just takes a lot of time. We don’t mind it, and even like doing it, but this does mean that it can sometimes take some time to respond or resolve certain issues for example. Please keep this in mind 🙂
Thirdly: No-one gets ‘special treatment’ on our platform(s), we do our best efforts to treat everyone equally with the same efforts. The perks/rewards and unlocks you get as patreon supporter is ‘your special treatment’. Every one is just as special and important to us, no matter how much you can afford to support me/us, no matter how much you want to pledge (or not). Obviously we are very grateful for every pledge and contribution from the wonderful community and the people in it, but this does not mean that we will treat other people as ‘less worthy’.
Ow and did I already mention that you didn’t bought the product? But that you got it as a reward/thank you for supporting my/our platform? 😉
The project/product doesn’t work as I expected and I want my money back!
Nope it’s not going to happen, for the very simple reason that your possible pledge was not only for the license key(s), you got a license key as one of the rewards/thank you’s for your pledge and support. Then there is also the ‘problem’ where if you have already unlocked/generated your license key, that we have no option at all to invalidate it! We do not use any activation servers, which means that if you have been presented a license key and have ‘written it down’ for example, that we have no means at all to revoke your ‘project/product activation’ anymore.
IMPORTANT: To prevent such ‘unpleasant situations’ just make sure to check out the project/product in full freeware mode. Most (if not all) projects/products will have a freeware mode.
For any other questions related to ‘refund questions’ in regards to platform pledges, please refer to our Refund and returns Policy page.
Free Licenses for Educational Institutes, Schools and Maker Spaces
ALL (official!) Educational institutes, schools and ‘freely open to the public’ maker-spaces (and youth centers for that matter) are eligible to receive a life-time license for all software projects/products on our site for free! If you want to apply for your college, class, makers-pace or even the entire school, then make sure to contact us directly via our contact form and we will see what we can do. Institutes and organizations which classify as such can obtain these licenses without using (any) Patreon tier or Patreon account linking. We are able to bind these keys to educational accounts with automatic renewal on new releases. Bellow I will explain the general differences between the Educational license and the Maker-space license.
Educational License
The Educational Edition license is an automatically renewing ‘license program’, which means that when a new version of a project/product gets released, that it will automatically be added to the account. The functionality of the Educational License is equivalent to the Business and Enterprise Editions. Accounts which have the Educational License assigned to them will have two licenses visible per project/product:
– The Student License also known as The Calendar Yearly License (CYL). This license is valid during the current (calendar) year and will automatically invalidate on each January 1st. After which the students will need to enter the new license key for that year again. This license type is meant for ‘handing-out licenses’ to students to use at school laptops, home computers etc. Due to the fact that this license will automatically invalidate each year, it will also stop working after the year has passed and the student has finished (or quit) school. This automatically invalidating license also ensures that it isn’t “that much of a big deal” if one of the students leaks the product code onto the internet for example. The student license has exactly the same functionality as the teacher’s license, except that it will invalidate/deactivate automatically every year. The Student License/CYL does not require an email address to be entered when activating the project, product or application, this is for privacy reasons in regards to the teacher whom has registered on our platform.
– Teachers/On-site license also known as the And the Main license (which is as the name suggest, the main license for the current (selected) major version of the project/product). This license is meant for use by the educators/teachers, or on (secure) school/institute computers (where students are not able to ‘copy the license files to an USB-drive’). These licenses will not expire on each January 1st, and will only need to be upgraded when upgrading to a new major version. While The Student License/CYL does not require an email address to be entered when activating , the main license does require an email address to be entered when activating.
Apply/Request an Educational License Status
To request an Educational license, you will need to contact us directly via our contact form. You can in advance already create an account for your Educational Institute, school etc on our website, but when emailing us, you will need to be able to show us that you are indeed an teacher from said institute or school. This can for example simply be done by including the school’s website in the email and then emailing us from/with your (teachers) school email address.
Accounts with the Educational License assigned to them will also be able to generate the regular licenses if they become a Patreon. This is however not recommended because the Educational License is already equivalent to the Business/Enterprise edition.
FRAUD PREVENTION WARNING:
IF we in anyway suspect possible abuse by students whom are trying to get a free Educational license by pretending to be an teacher/professor, we will actually contact the institute or school directly to verify the possible license request!
NOTE: CYL Educational licenses/Student Licenses are exempt from getting blocked/banned, even if students misbehave and publicly post the license information on the internet. Neither will the Educational institute, school etc be held responsible for students leaking the Student/CYL license keys. However: It is of UTMOST importance that the Educational MAIN (Teachers) License Key will not be shared with students! This key CAN get banned when it has been leaked onto the internet to prevent further abuse!
Maker-space license
The maker-space license is basically also an automatic renewing ‘license program’, meaning that it will automatically add new versions to the registered account when a new version of the included project / product gets released. Maker-space licenses do not require any Patreon membership at all.
The Maker-space license is functionally equivalent to the Business / Enterprise Edition (the most elaborate license type).
Basically the only limitation of the Maker-space license (compared to the Educational Edition license) is that the Maker-space license does NOT have the ‘yearly in-validation option’ (CYL) and it is not intended (or allowed) to ‘give-away’ to visitors of the maker space ‘to take the license home with them’. Neither should the maker-space license be used/installed on laptops and such directly owned by the visitors. The maker-space license should only be installed on the computers/systems directly on-site (on location) or on ‘portable computers’ directly owned by the maker-space.
Accounts with the Maker-space License assigned to them will still be able to generate the regular licenses if they become a Patreon. This is however not recommended because the Educational License is already equivalent to the Business/Enterprise edition.
If such maker-space does for example offer the option to ‘borrow laptops’ for maker-space visitors/users (to take home with them), then the Maker-space license can be installed on these ‘portable machines’. However we recommend not doing so, just because of the simple fact that users might be able to copy the installation(s) to usb-drives and thus ‘hijack’ the license (file) for own (unauthorized) use.
There are a few ‘restriction’ to request a maker-space license, simply due to the fact that we will need to prevent abuse of this program.
The maker-space has to have it’s own dedicated space (or for example be held at a class-room, old/extra office space after work hours etc). This means that it actually must be a seriously organized (open to the public) maker-space. “Just” a group of friends in their backyard or garage is something we unfortunately (currently) can’t include without ensuring that such applications aren’t just ‘abused’ to “get free stuff” so to speak. By strong preference the maker-space does need to have any form of ‘online-presence’, so that we can communicate through this ‘presence/channel’ so that we can confirm/verify the existence of the maker-space . This can be an own website (preferred!), an active Facebook page or group (needs to be public!) or anything of the alike. If there isn’t anyway which we can use to actually verify the existence of the maker-space, then we are not able to assign the maker-space license unfortunately.
If you think that your maker-space might be eligible for our free Maker-space license, then make sure to contact us through our contact form.
Revoked ‘Special Licenses’
When your ‘special license’ (like for example the Educational Edition License or the Maker-Space Edition License) is revoked or removed from your account (either by our decision or your own request), you will NOT have access to license keys of older versions in regards to these editions either anymore. IF you had “Patreon obtained licenses”, you will still keep those though (unless of course your entire account has been terminated or banned).
Last Updated: 11-03-2022