If it's worth having a serial number,
it's worth tracking with QFS

Software for Manufacturing.

QFS Usage is Being Offered by API for Free

API is a technology company with QFS, a fully developed product that has been purchased by a number of companies. We have never developed any expertise in sales and marketing and don't care to do it now. We built a superior product and even though it does not generate much revenue we want to see it get used. Since this is a personal question for us we have had some flexibility on how we approach the issue. We have decided that as a service to the manufacturing community that we'd give away what we used to sell. The fundamentals of API's plan to give away QFS are this.

• API will give away the rights to use QFS for free. For free we can't include Oracle or a warranty but will include everything else as it's been delivered to customers. We will require a license and then everything needed to set up and run QFS (including the full set of executables and documentation but excluding the database itself) can be downloaded over the Internet. We'll make improvements available the same way.
  
  
• Many companies will be able to install and run the QFS software themselves from the documentation that comes with it. A number of companies already have experience doing this and we expect that trend to continue.
  
  
• Some companies may want API's help with the installation and support of QFS. This may be either for our particular expertise in manufacturing or because of the scale of their projects. If those companies want API's assistance API will charge our standard T&M rates. API will also charge for any modifications and additions customers may need to the base system. We'll do these modifications from the controlled set of source code we keep at API.
  
  
• Occasionally companies will want to have the source code to QFS. This is either for the security that brings to them, for an ability to make modifications that they don't want shared, or because they have a cost-effective development team already in place. API will sell the source code to those companies.