According to example configurations as described herein, use of software can be contingent upon whether a hierarchical license tree has a valid license for a software resource associated with a respective node in the tree. For example, an installer can be configured to traverse the hierarchical license tree to identify which, if any, of the software resources as represented by nodes in the tree has a valid license and therefore can be installed for execution on a respective computer system. If a valid license exists for a given node in the tree, the software resource associated with the given node as well as software resources associated with child nodes of the given node can be installed for use on the computer. A software resource manager can be configured to prevent installation, execution, etc., of software resources for nodes above the respective parent node that do not have a corresponding valid license.