RE: [PHP] Compiled Source for PHP?

To anyone considering using a obfuscated library in one of your programs: D O N ' T D O I T ! Once upon a time, a company named Borland came out with a cool library format for a product called Turbo Pascal. Lots of people sold libraries for all kinds of functions. Some came with source, some did not. For a while, everything was great. Then Borland released a new version of Turbo Pascal, and the library format changed. The libraries with source code could just be re-compiled, usually with a few changes to the source. If you did not have source, you had to wait for the supplier to provide a new library. Some of the suppliers were out of business, or were unwilling to produce updates in a timely manner. Lots of people were unhappy to find out there was nothing they could do with out the source code. That only happened once. After being burned, or hearing the stories of others, nobody would buy a library without source code. Soon no one even tried to sell them. So, potential buyers, are you going to learn from history, or wait till you get burned too? I got lucky, I watched the Borland forum on Compuserve and learned from the misfortune of others. No source code -- no deal! This message is mostly about library functions, but in my mind it would go for web sites too. At the very least buyers should DEMAND the source code be placed in escrow, so if the designer/programmer dies or goes out of business you have access to the souce code to continue develpment of the web site that you have paid so much for. Rick Widmer Internet Marketing Specialists http://www.developersdesk.com