Re: protecting your php code from other peeping toms?

On Thu, 11 Oct 2001 10:53:00 -0700 impersonator of andrew.chase@valleypres.org (Andrew Chase) planted &I saw in php.general: >Why not formally license your scripts to your clients? Yes, they'll still >have access to the source code, and yes, theoretically, someone could still >copy it regardless of their license agreement, but if they sign or accept a >clickwrap license agreement you would have legal recourse if you found out >about it. You could put together as restrictive a license as you want. > >You could, theoretically, include a license restriction that forbids a >client from touching so much as a blank space in your script... then do an >MD5 checksum on the script file when you install it, and run a cron job to >recheck the checksum every night; if it doesn't match the original, >somebody's monkeyed with it. The script e-mails you, you make a nasty phone >call to your client. Or I guess you could just check the file modification >time for that matter. Harder to protect from copying, though, and I'm sure >any solutions would be just as klunky. > >But it's important to remember that with proper licensing, releasing source >code doesn't mean you don't own the copyright or 'Intellectual Property' any >more, no matter what Microsoft would like you to believe. Ideally, right. Law should protect you. From this point, I agree with your above "licensing" part and expressed simular believes myself earlier. >Well, if keeping your code secure isn't worth the cost of the Zend optimizer >but you're determined to keep it hidden, then maybe PHP isn't the right tool You are not restricted to zend, if you are not able to pay for it. And it doesn't mean, you have to forget PHP, or live "open for all":) >to use. You could write CGI scripts in C, which would live on the server as >compiled executables. Harder to learn, yes (It's definitely slow going for >me compared to PHP), but no source code. > Thats is one of the solution to your previous part. See my another post in the thread. You can encript your main code in _PHP_ and work with it from compiled module. Although I actually made only the have stuff of it yet:) >-Andy > And of course, all we discuss here are VERY relative in nowerdays of snooping equipment, but also technically interestin<g>