Any method of making a perlapp a trial version?

boat73 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Any method of making a perlapp a trial version? by nightwatch (Scribe) on Jul 06, 2004 at 18:40 UTC
Keep in mind that, unless your program is entirely server-side, you can never do this securely. The client is in the hands of enemies. This is one of the main reasons such "crippleware" has become increasingly unpopular. There are several commercial solutions to this problem, but every one has been broken.	[reply]
Re: Any method of making a perlapp a trial version? by Mercio (Scribe) on Jul 06, 2004 at 20:11 UTC
They are making excelent points. Trail versions that only work for a short time can be broken very easily if you know what you are doing. A better thing to do would be to make a limited version of your program so they just get a taste of all the godly goodness of it. It makes them eager to get their hands on more.	[reply]
Re: Any method of making a perlapp a trial version? by bart (Canon) on Jul 06, 2004 at 19:03 UTC
Lots of programs (not perl scripts) that do this, do it by hiding a value in the registry in a non-obvious place... which your app can check to see if it should still run. As long as people can't edit — or see! — your source code, you should be able to get away with it.	[reply]
Re^2: Any method of making a perlapp a trial version? by gaal (Parson) on Jul 06, 2004 at 19:26 UTC
The standard answer to that one is "people's compiler can see your code; and so can the people".	[reply]
Re: Any method of making a perlapp a trial version? by Anomynous Monk (Scribe) on Jul 06, 2004 at 18:57 UTC
rm $0 if time>$end ?	[reply]