Hi We are shortly to release the next version of Form Generator Pro (automatic generation of HTML form/PHP processing code) and are looking for some comments on the way in which we intend to make the software available.
Due to the fact that we cannot distribute this PHP application without comprising copyright (the Zend Encoder is not an affordable option for us - we are a small start-up business), the current version of Form Generator Pro is only available for use online at the C U Online site which is fine because 1. it only generates mail forms and 2. it's free. However this won't work for version 2 because version 2 automatically generates forms for MySQL databases by querying the database for table information (field lengths, types etc). Opening up connections from our server to other servers to get database info is not an option - for security reasons (and also many MySQL servers are set up to only accept local connections anyway for this reason). To resolve this problem, the software has been split into 2 parts. The part that retrieves the database information sits on the customers server (secured). Field definitions are then extracted and sent to the generator which remains on our site. I will stress here that no actual database data is sent between the 2 servers, nor any MySQL server usernames or passwords - just the field lengths, types etc of the selected table. Access to the generator will then be sold as opposed to selling the actual software (although mail form generation will remain free). This is not an ideal solution but it seems to be the only way to make the software available and at the same time protect copyright. I would be grateful for any thoughts from other businesses/developers on this solution. Regards Debbie Dyer Software Engineer for C U Online
