J. Landman Gay wrote:
On 13/04/2013, at 9:53 AM, "Cal Horner" <calhorner at xtra.co.nz> wrote:
I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems something is askew.
Think about it like this. You've written a big commercial software
program and are selling it successfully. It brings in money. You've
protected your intellectual property by password protecting the stacks,
so that no one can read your code by looking at it in a text editor.
Let's say LiveCode's OSS is fully open with no restrictions. That means
your code is exposed because it can't be protected. Your neighbor buys
one copy of your app, learns the password algorithms from the OSS
version of LiveCode, uses that to unlock your password, sees all your
code, copies your work, and begins selling it as a competing product.
Not so good.
To prevent that, the OSS version contains no password algorithms. The
public can't see how it works, and commercial software remains
protected. But because there are no password algorithms in it, the OSS
version can't open protected stacks. The code to do that just isn't in
there.
That's why your plugins won't open in community LiveCode. But many
vendors have chosen to release both open and closed versions of their
plugins. You need to ask them if they're planning to do that.
That's a very good description of the mechanics of password protection,
but the principle behind it is even simpler:
Concealing source code is logically incompatible with a license that
requires disclosure of the source code.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World
LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys
_______________________________________________
use-livecode mailing list
use-livecode@lists.runrev.com
Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription
preferences:
http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
