RLM is an enterprise-class software licensing solution that can be deployed locally on premises or in the cloud. RLM handles licenses for evaluations and subscriptions. Most license managers provide APIs with calls to control many of the aspects of licensing behavior. In addition, license managers provide license administration options to control the behavior of the license servers. These options are specified in server option files or via command-line or web-based administration tools. First-generation license managers (such as FLEXlm and NetLS) required software developers to use extremely complex APIs to control license policy within applications, with relatively less control contained in the licenses themselves. Changes to license policies required developers to modify the application source code and re-release the applications. Unlike the first-generation license managers, the design philosophy of RLM preserves the simplicity of the system for both software publishers and license administrators by avoiding unnecessary options in the client library and the license servers and moving these options to the license file, where they are visible and understandable by everyone. In general, even when API calls are available, it is good practice to keep license policy out of the application and the license server, and place it into the license itself (to the extent that the license manager allows this). This not only makes a more understandable licensing system, but it also results in more standard behavior of application licensing from one publisher to the next. The Reprise team learned this while supporting thousands of FLEXlm customers, and we applied these lessons to the design of RLM.