> -----Original Message-----
> From: Edward Wildgoose
> Sent: 20 October 2003 09:48
> Subject: RE: Source Hiding (was: Encrypting Source)
>
I'm starting to get a strange feeling of deja vu about this
whole thread. It's something which comes up every couple of
months either on this mailing list or in one of the
comp.lang.perl.* newsgroups and always seems to come to the
same conclusion (heck it's even an FAQ 'perldoc -q hide'!)
> Basically unless you happen to reverse engineer stuff
> everyday, then it's going to take ordinary people at least a
> few days to weeks to google around, download stuff and hack
> the program. This probably means you are going to pay your
> programmers somewhere between a few hundred and a few
> thousand dollars for their time. So this is a reasonable
> barrier to entry for many classes of program. Many companies
> will just buy the software for $50 or whatever you priced it
> at instead...
But if that's all you want then you can do that already.
For free. Just run your program through Acme::Bleach before
you pack it into a PAR archive and it will be hidden. Someone
wanting to read your source will have to go a-gooling to figure
out how, and your boss will find that s/he can't find a trace
of source code (or any other code in this particular case!).
Just to be on the safe side though I'd be tempted to put a
copyright notice in with your software (before the use
Acme::Bleach!) so your code actually has some real protection.
TTFN
Simon.
PS Please make sure that you only run Acme::Bleach on a copy of
your source code, NOT the original (otherwise it'll be you who
has to go running to Google).
