On 2/7/08, Daniel Brown <parasane@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Actually, Greg, I respectfully disagree. First, just because > there may be ways to reverse-engineer things doesn't mean it's a bad > idea to attempt to protect your code against such. Why would you encode to start with? The only reason I can think of is because you don't trust your client. So why are you doing business with people you don't trust? > I know that people > can smash in the windows of my Durango and steal my equipment, but I > still lock it when I park it and go into the store. Why? Because I > don't want to make things easy enough for someone to be tempted to > take something. I know that if they want something badly enough, > they'll take it.... but I'm just not going to make it that easy. That's my whole point. Honest people aren't gonna steal your code anyway. Trying to prevent them from making a simple change when you're not around is pointless. Would you have bought that Durango if the hood had been welded shut? I'm guessing you're not a mechanic, so you'll _never_ need to raise the hood, right? What about when you come out of the grocery store and there's a hot blonde who needs a jump because she forgot and left her lights on before she went in? > And if Zend considered it "pointless", they probably would no > longer attempt to further develop - nor put their name on the line to Oh please, Zend isn't the first company to ever create useless software. Creation, in no way, proves usefulness. > sell - the product line. By definition, pointless means I know where dictionary.com is, thanks :) > It also keeps script kiddies from typing "decode php" into Google > and being able to pull one over. I fail to see how Zend adding "decode" into their list of Google Adwords keeps script kiddies from doing anything. I used the Google Adwords example as confirmation Zend is well aware of existing decoders. > While industry standards may not be > the lock that cannot be picked, proprietary obfuscation will keep > people who don't know what they're doing out of your code --- and if If you're paid to write code then write code, and then when you're done give them the code and collect your money. They paid for the code so why do you think you still own rights to it? > they possess the acumen and free time to be able to reverse-engineer > the code themselves, I honestly don't know why they'd pay someone to > develop the application in PHP for them in the first place. I honestly don't know where you find clients so dumb that they who would put up with not getting full source code for a paid project. -- Greg Donald http://destiney.com/ -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
