Re: Protecting source code

["David E. Wheeler" <suppressed>]

On Aug 25, 2006, at 11:05, Octavian Rasnita wrote:

> Hi americans :-)

Heh. Nailed me. ;-)

> So the programmer works for the source code, makes it open source,  
> and then
> comes another programmer that gets it, delete the name of the  
> author, make
> some changes, and then sell the program pretending it is his code, and
> sometimes the second programmer has more relations and can contact  
> more
> clients. In USA there are ways of protections, but in other  
> countries there
> are not.

This issue is inherent in all open source software, of course, not  
just Perl software.

> I think that if mod_perl programs could be very well encrypted, this
> technology would be a little more used than it is now, but they  
> can't, and
> if this is a disadvantage for some of us, we shouldn't say that the
> programmers shouldn't need such a thing.

I think that if obfuscating the source code (by compiling or  
encrypting or whatever) is a high priority for you, then Perl may not  
be the best choice of language for your software. And even for Java  
there are decompilers and for PHP the code must be unencrypted to  
run. So maybe C is the best choice.

But you should know that there are no perfect solutions to this  
issue. Ultimately, it's a social and political issue, not a  
technological issue.

Best,

David