License

License is a gem that can generate and validate license keys. This can powered paid/shareware apps written in Ruby.

Installation

To install, use these commands:

gem sources -a http://rubygems.org  # you only need to run this if you're not using the latest RubyGems
sudo gem install license

To use this in your Rails app, add this to your config/environment.rb:

Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
    config.gem 'license'
end

I won't code or test with Rails 3 until it has been officially released.

For a new license, call the License.new method with the name, email, and product name as the arguments

@license = License.new("Evan Walsh","evan@nothingconcept.com","License Gem Test")

Then, you can generate a key using the generate method

@license.generate # returns 3F7B-D428-ED3A-3636

To check if a key is valid, use the validate method with they key as the argument

@license.validate("3F7B-D428-ED3A-3636") # returns true

Please note that this is not a bulletproof copy-protection solution. It's based on more of an honor system.