The license I wrote is mostly a joke, though it does state that GlassCalc is free software and that you use it at your own risk. Creating your own license should be fine, but if you really want to avoid leaving loopholes, I would suggest using or basing your license off an existing one.

I’ve been looking up licenses for about an hour now, but I can’t find much information on it. I would like to just create my own. I read up on some copywrite law and programs are protected under the standard copywrite law.

I just wish I knew if creating my own freeware license is allowed.

Do you have to pay for anything, like a copywrite in order for that license to hold ground?

I also use VS 2010 Beta 2. I’ll have to check out the book you mentioned for reference as I also generally just use google to find what I need.

The more robust program which i’ve implemented a theme engine for, uses xml files to store information. I never thought of using them to verify the version, that’s a good idea. It’s so simple, haha.

I really appreciate you taking the time to humor me. :)

The update system is pretty simple, but that’s not going to stop this from being a long description… There are a few more robust update frameworks out there, but I didn’t need anything that fancy, so I wrote my own. I have an XML file on my site (here) that holds the version number of the latest version, the download link, an info link, and the md5 hash of the installer. I use a WebRequest to download the XML file and an XmlReader to parse it. Then I compare the version on the web to the current version and show the updater dialog if it is newer. I run the whole thing using a BackgroundWorker to keep it from freezing the UI.

If an update is needed and you click Install, I use a WebClient to download the installer using the URL from the XML file I downloaded earlier. Once it finishes, I use a MD5CryptoServiceProvider to make sure the installer downloaded fully and unmodified before running it.

Would you mind if I picked your brain about the tools you use on your projects? Like, what program do you use to compile and write your code and what books have you read that helped you the most?

I was also curious about the checking for updates option you have. I have another more robust program that I’ve developed which kind of requires that sort of support, or at least will.

Actually, GlassCalc is written entirely in C#, though I used WPF to build the interface. I’m quite a fan of C#.

If you’re looking for a place to host your programs, I don’t know of any good ones (which is why I built my own site). If you already have a place to host them though, there are a quite a number of free software sites around, for example: Freeware Home and Freeware Files. Some will host your files, but others want you to host them.

I also enjoy writing utility programs in .NET, but I use C# – less time consuming.

I was trying to find a place to post my program, do you have any suggestions? I don’t necessarily want to post the source, I would just like to see what people think of it.

Anyway, great program. I can see you put a lot of time and effort into it.