protect autolisp programs
Tomer Karin
that way nobody will be able to read them but they will still work ?
if yes is it a shareware? where can i get it?
syska....@uu.psi.com
writes:
> does anybody know about a software that can protect your autolisp programs
> that way nobody will be able to read them but they will still work ?
> if yes is it a shareware? where can i get it?
Yes, there are at least two. The most effective is something called
KELV.EXE from AutoDesk's John Walker (aka Kelvin Throop). KELV removes
comments, extra(?) spaces and linefeeds, and translates user defined
functions and variable assignments to non-mnemonic gibberish.
One bug in KELV is that it doesn't deal well with SSGET "x" filters.
i.e. it translates (ssget "x" '((0 . "INSERT"))) to:
(SSGET"x"'((0."INSERT")))
^
(note the missing spaces)
which translation doesn't evaluate identically (or even close) to
the original expression. I seem to recall it's also missing
functions in its .def file that were added after r.9 (such as
findfile). The first problem you can fix with a string-search-&-replace
utility- the second can be fixed by simply editing the .def file (which
is where you declare any function or variable names you don't want
translated to gibberish).
The other is a program called PROTECT.EXE, also from AutoDesk.
This is file encryption utility, the effects of which are easily
reversed by a decryption counter-utility called AUTODC.EXE (available
on some BBSs). This is only useful as a second level of 'discouragement'.
Neither of these would deter a programmer who seriously wished to
decrypt your code. For a reasonably effective AutoLISP protection method,
we'll have to hold out for an AutoLISP -> ADS translator. ;-)
Ben Olasov ola...@cs.columbia.edu
Ben Olasov b...@syska.com
claf...@gold.colorado.edu
The program kelvinator will encrypt you AutoLISP making it more difficult, but
not impossible to be editted. It is available through the ACAD forum on
Compuserve and on the CADENCE BBS. It is freeware to the best of my knowledge.
David Van Hemel
is, who is it legal to protect them from? Who has the rights to the program?
I wrote dozens of them during a job I had this summer. Does the programmer
have the rights (i.e. the ability to copyright the code in his name) or does
his employer, since the programmer made the code on that employer's equipment
and in that employer's employ? It is further complicated in my case in that
I did most of the programming on my lunch hours which are nominally my time,
not the employer's.
Anyone with knowledge about this (preferred over speculation) please post!
Thanks...Dave
--
David A. Van Hemel | "Nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal
(vanh...@eniac.seas.upenn.edu) | As specks of dust we're universal..."
Robert Holt
belongs to that employer, unless you have other arrangements (in writing).
Usually one signs an agreement upon accepting employment specifying
the ownership of intellectual property you may generate...
/*-------------------------------------------------------+
| Robert Holt - Digital Equipment Corp - Palo Alto, CA.
|
| "We're not shooting enough professors."
| -Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
|
| Standard Disclaimer applies...
+-------------------------------------------------------*/
Dan Drake
> Well, it would seem to me that anything you wrote at an employer site
> belongs to that employer, unless you have other arrangements (in writing).
It used to be that the work would belong to the employer as a "work made
for hire" even if you hadn't signed an agreement. A recent change in
copyright law has given the employee more rights in the absence of an
agreement. As for work done during off-time on the company's resources
-- who knows?
> Usually one signs an agreement upon accepting employment specifying
> the ownership of intellectual property you may generate...
Usually one has to sign a long, detailed agreement, of scope so wide as
to be unenforceable, giving the company the rights to one's work and to
one's off-hour creations, with waivers being available for rights to
one's dreams, provided a disclosure form is filled out in triplicate the
next morning. (No, not at Autodesk.) BTW, California law frowns on such
over-broad agreements, and the employer can IMHO lose more than he gains
by being fascistic.
Seriously, a company is just plain dumb if it doesn't have a standard
intellectual-rights agreement.
--
Dan Drake Golgofrinchans go home!
dr...@Autodesk.com