Hello,
I am an amateur java programmer, but now an enterprise is
interested in some code I wrote. Being totally inexperienced
in such matters I hope to find some advice about the basics
of commercial java code. The following questions in particular
seem important to me. I would very much appreciate any answers
and references. Thank you.
obfuscating:
I consider obfuscating the *.jar file mainly to reduce file size.
Searching the web I found one free obfuscator inspiring confidence
namely RetroGuard by RetroLogic. It says it is free (lesser GPL) even
for commercial use. Although everything looks fine I am a bit suspicious
about that. Which obfuscator (free if possible) would you suggest?
Is there a risk that they modify your code in an undesired way, like
inserting any time based behavior?
trial version:
Since I have signed no contract yet but need to demonstrate the applet
I implemented a simple date check in the main class that compares
the current instance of Calendar with a Calendar constant time stamp
and refuses execution when current time is later than that time stamp.
Is that the usual way? It should be easy to circumvent even when
the code is obfuscated. On the other hand, since they buy java code
from an amateur they probably do not have the know how.
price:
The applet they want is based on a versatile tool I wrote and
naturally only exploits a small fraction of the library's features.
Now somebody told me I should estimate the number of hours a
professional would have needed to write the applet in order to
determine a reasonable price. But that is difficult: I spent quite
a bit of time on the tool itself by now, but when they asked me
to write this special purpose applet it took only slight adjustments
and some configuring of the tool to do it.
license:
They only need this one special purpose applet right now. But my code
is versatile and even though I do not bundle all classes but
only those necessary for this one applet, it is possible by looking
at the XML file that configures the applet to use the *.jar I
deliver for other purposes. I may even need to tell them how to
configure everything. Can I still restrict usage to, say, this one
web page? Or should I instead license the entire tool right away?
I can certainly reserve the right to use the code elsewhere and possibly
sell further licenses of the same code?
Knowing that this mailing list may not be the right place for
this topic I apologize for the long posting. It is just that I badly
need some professional advice and such is hard to find on the
news groups.
Thus thanks again for answers and/or references.
Regards,
Urs Schreiber
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.uni-essen.de/~hnr00s
----------------------------------------------------------------------
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
