tjosten

During the past weeks, I developed and published a small OS X utility app that sells for ~$3 in the Mac App Store. However, due do French export laws for apps that include encryption mechanisms, the app is not available in the French app store.

(It ships and uses libssh2 and implements SCP over SSH, and therefor does not use "encryption mechanisms that are provided by the operating system" - the registration process for that is all in French and neither Apple nor the French government seems to be able to help with that.)

As I got a bunch of emails asking why the app is not available in the French Mac App Store by now, I thought about offering a non-MAS version of the app. Coming to my initial question, I'm not sure if I want to spend time on implementing any kind of license key check etc., or just offer that version completely without DRM / license checks as it surely will be cracked either way. (The Mac App Store version is available as a torrent for quite some time now, so whoever wants to steal the app will do no matter what I finally do.)

So, I'd like to ask you guys how you handle this, or how you would handle this if you were in my situation? Spend time on implementing a license key check that will be cracked either way, or just offer a non-DRM version that'll sell in France to make everyone happy?

Thanks.