in reply to Re: Closing Perl Source
in thread Closing Perl Source

Good list, but you missed a couple:

and Here's my One True Answer:

If you had to ask this question, you're not going to make any money off it. Save yourself the trouble, release the code, and benefit from other's input.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Re: Closing Perl Source
by audreyt (Hermit) on Apr 02, 2003 at 20:23 UTC
    I hope that nobody will claim PAR as "secure", or I'll be very embarassed.

    That said, for non-technical people the Zip format provided by PAR does construe as a way to 'hide' the source code -- at least from grep ;-).

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      zgrep ;-)

      --
      I'm not belgian but I play one on TV.

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        I'm pretty sure that zgrep only work on .gz files, not .par (i.e. zip) files. :)
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Re: Re: Re: Closing Perl Source
by Vorlin (Beadle) on Apr 02, 2003 at 22:33 UTC

    I'll admit that at some early point in time, I too had wanted to "close" a perl-oriented script/program. I did the foresight of reading other people's attempts and saw that it wasn't a really good idea and if I wanted anything "closed", to just write it in C, even though good usage of strings and decompilers can get most of it out. Since then, I've never hid/closed anything I've written and I have gotten much more positive responses on all things I've ever written from those in the open source community. I even provide the source for things written in C, documentation and all.

    Bottom line, just share it. You'll find that the responses you'll get are much more open and helpful than if you try to "hide" an interpreted-language-oriented script.

    It's like the guy that wanted to write all of his shell scripts in perl. Everything on the system that ran in /bin/sh was converted to /usr/bin/perl...which promptly failed because /usr isn't mounted at boot time and hence, no perl binary is available. Just because it sounds like a good idea, doesn't mean it's anywhere near a good idea.

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Ultimately Closing Perl Source
by wolfger (Deacon) on Apr 03, 2003 at 01:51 UTC
    The best way to hide perl code is to GPG encrypt it.
    Of course, it won't function in that state. But what's more important: code that works, or proprietary code?
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Re: Re: Re: Closing Perl Source
by Elian (Parson) on Apr 02, 2003 at 18:37 UTC
    Hey! I like C! :-P
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      You're a sick, sick man. ;-P

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        "I don't suffer from insanity. I revel in it"
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Re: Re: Re: Closing Perl Source
by Anonymous Monk on Apr 04, 2003 at 05:53 UTC

    Ha! This is on Best Nodes of the week! What's up with the moderation system?

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      We have a comerical perl script that the boss doesnt not want to be floating around. I know how to write .NET code and some C. Is there any way to simply embed the perl or maybe just call through some kind of ASP page or Web Service so as to keep the code in our own hands. Don't kill me for asking how to swollow open source with the .NET monster, just trying to stay on the bosses good side... :-)
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        Don't run perl then. The thing starts by compiling source code. Or see Quick and dirty obfuscation.

        ⠤⠤ ⠙⠊⠕⠞⠁⠇⠑⠧⠊

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In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom