Software licence
What is a software licence?
A software licence is permission to use software someone else owns, together with the terms: for what purpose, by how many people, on how many machines, for how long, and what you may not do with it. A licence grants a right to use; it does not transfer the copyright. So with bespoke software, whether you receive a licence or the rights themselves is agreed separately.
Example
A company buys a warehouse system licensed for ten named users, with support included for the first year. In the second year support becomes optional: without it the version keeps running, but updates and new features stop. Meanwhile the team grows by four people and opens a second warehouse — each new user is another licence, not a free extra.
The same question runs through bespoke software. It almost always stands on open source libraries. Licences such as MIT and Apache 2.0 allow commercial use as long as the attribution stays. Copyleft licences such as GPL and AGPL place conditions on derivative works when those are distributed, and AGPL extends that to use over a network. This is not a footnote: it decides what can be done with the system afterwards.
Why it matters for a business
A licence answers the question of what exactly is being bought. Term: perpetual or subscription. Scope: production, testing, development. Count: named users, concurrent users, servers or cores. The right to modify, and the right to see the code. The right to transfer it if the company is restructured. And what stays with you if you stop paying for support.
In Bulgaria computer programs are protected under copyright law, and any transfer of rights is set out in writing in the contract. Some rights follow from lawful acquisition itself, such as making a backup copy. Off-the-shelf systems, including an open source CMS, come with a licence as well; what is yours is what has been built on top of them.
Who gets which licence over what is part of the web software contract, and it is read before signing rather than when the relationship ends.
What to ask
- What is the term, and what happens to the data and the access when it ends?
- How is the licence counted: per user, per concurrent session, per server?
- Does it include updates and security fixes, and for how long?
- Which third-party components are used, and under which licences?
- Can the licence be transferred in a merger, an acquisition or a change of entity?