From: "Shlomi Fish" <shlo...@shlomifish.org>
Hi all, On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:01:27 -0800 (PST) Rajeev Prasad <rp.ne...@yahoo.com> wrote: > freinds, > > what is the advice just for obfuscating code? platform is solaris. > > ty. thanks all for the great responses. Here is something I have written about it in the context of using Python bytecode files (.pyc) for hiding the source, which some people erroneously believe is an advantage of Python: http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/39732.html Well, I don't agree. First, in some parts of the world, the recommendation of using user license agreements or lawyers is futile, because the laws are not the same all over, and even where the laws should be respected, they are not. Second, I have read for many times that it is easy to decompile a bytecode, or to clean the obfuscated code, but I couldn't find "easy" to follow examples about how to do that. It is true that I haven't searched on the web for programs that can be used for this, but if someone needs to search for such programs that might also include malware, it means that it is not an easy task. So as a promotor of an open source language I can recommend to offer open source programs, but if you need to sell the programs for living, to a public you can't trust, respect your public, but force them to pay, because otherwise they won't pay absolutely anything they can get for free. The fact that Perl doesn't have tools that make the encryption/obfuscation so easy as for other languages is another reason for which the software companies prefer other languages. A pretty good solution for hiding the source code is to package the Perl programs using a paid application like ActiveState PDK. For most users it would be too complicated and it would require a too big effort to do that, so they might prefer to pay because this would be easier. Otherwise... for some users the payment itself may be a complicated thing, even they will accept to give the money, so if the source code can be used for free, it is clear that they won't pay at all. It would be nice if Perl would allow us to choose what programs we want to offer as open source and which ones we want to protect as good as possible, but in an easier way. Perl has other advantages. In this field it doesn't have an advantage. Octavian -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
