Are we really spiraling into a discussion on the merits of open versus closed source?
Perl is a scripting language, it was create by a linguist which it is why it allows for so many different ways to get the code to do the same thing. It is like a language very flexible in many ways. Obfuscating code is not a good idea for the nice market that Perl inhabits it is as simple as that. If you want to do something like lets say quantum super positioning then sure that could be done in Perl. But even the author of that module stated that it was a pretty silly thing to do in Perl as it was simply not meant to do such things. Other scripting languages try (wrong or right that's up to you) to be everything to all people and for large part are beginning to loose sight of the scripting language that they are at their core. More and more these languages are attempting to compete with the Java's of this world who in its own right is trying to take the place of C/C++. Personally I am of the opinion that most programming languages have a good reason for existing, there is a problem domain in which they are simply the best tool in the box. But the idea that a lot of modern languages seem to try is to be the only tool in the box which in my opinion is totally wrong. The reason why most Perl people will tell you obfuscation in Perl is simply not right and should not be done is because the problem domain that Perl covers is not on in which obfuscation is the way you should go. If you are inventing something so extraordinary or exceptional that you absolutely need to protect your code from prying eyes then you should wonder if you should be using Perl for this. I know learning another language is not the most fun or exciting bit of writing code but sometimes that other language is simply much better suited to deal with the problem you are trying to tackle. Regardless of where you stand in the open source vs. closed source discussion, I think we can all agree that code obfuscation is simply not something that Perl the Perl authors or a rather substantial portion of the Perl community support. Therefore you might want to try and build some tool that does obfuscate your code for you if you really need it and cannot change the language you are working in for what ever reason. But I seriously doubt you will see a large portion of the Perl community supporting your efforts. Not unlike the tools that turn Perl scripts into binary files ready to be executed on a platform of your choice (during compile time of course) an obfuscation tool will be used for sure, but there is not a wide spread believe within the Perl community that this is the right thing to do with Perl. The main argument being there are better languages to do that in. On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 8:49 PM, Bob McConnell <r...@cbord.com> wrote: > 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/ > > >
