People have been selling both Open Source and Free Software for years. Both IBM and RedHat are doing very well at it. But they don't always require cash or monetary profit as their selling price. You might also want to consider this article about the open source economic model.
<http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=180777> bm > -----Original Message----- > From: Octavian Rasnita [mailto:orasn...@gmail.com] > Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2013 12:53 PM > To: Bob McConnell; Perl Beginners > Subject: Re: obfuscating code > > From: "Bob McConnell" <r...@cbord.com> > > > You cannot obfuscate the input to an interpreter. It has to be in a format > > that the interpreter will recognize, which necessarily means that people > > can > > also read it. If you really need to hide your source code, you have to > > switch to a compiled language with an actively optimizing compiler. > > > I don't think that a Perl programmer can't hide his source code well enough, > and if he wants to do that, he needs to switch to another language. > > If he created a Windows executable nice packaged in a setup.exe installer > and wants to sell it for $10 - $20, then hiding the source code might help. > If he just says that the users should pay $10 for using that program > provided as source code, somebody who knows a little Perl could pay for it, > then change the name of the program, eventually do some cosmetic changes > in > the source code, package it using ActiveState PDK and sell it as a new > program that competes with the original one. > Some may even like to do this to show that they are great programmers and > that they created an application. > > If getting the source code is complicated enough, than those who may want > to > duplicate the program may get bored and abandon the idea. > > Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, SAP use to sell proprietary applications and > their financial situation is not too bad. :-) > I think that if providing everything as open source would have been such a > good idea from the financial point of view, they would have provided all > their applications as open source for a long time. > > Octavian -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: beginners-unsubscr...@perl.org For additional commands, e-mail: beginners-h...@perl.org http://learn.perl.org/
