Has anyone delivered a commericial mod_perl application before? If so, how
do you handle demo versions, preferably with expiration dates? One thought
is to simply xor encrypt some of the modules when the user downloads it,
mail him a key, and use the Filter module to decrypt at runtime using his
key (retrieved from STDIN at server startup time).
Please don't flame me about how this isn't secure - I know all the issues.
The point is to provide a timeing out demo version - not protect the source
code. I just want to prevent the user from editing and removing the "die if
time > xxxx" line as much as possible.
Another alternative, which I've seen, is severely limited demo versions
(e.g. wwwthreads takes that approach - shipping an earlier demo version).
I'd rather not go down that route, as it means I have to code in a way that
allows major functionality to simply be removed.
Another is to ship some of the code built in pre-compiled XS. But then I'm
architecture dependant and I'd rather not be.
The final alternative is just an online demo, which are never particularly
satisfactory for highly customisable systems.
--
<Matt/>
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