[PHP] Question on Commercial Offerings

[Thomas Deliduka]

I don't know quite how to word that subject but here's what we want to do.

We have a shopping cart softwre (like a million others out there) which
based in windows NT with a COM+ object to guard the source code.

We mainly offer this product to our hosting customers as an add-on solution
to their hosting.

Well, we want to migrate this to PHP/MySQL and I don't know how to protect
the source code. My boss is suggesting to make a DSO but I really am not a C
programmer to do all that. I want to make it all in PHP but somehow protect
the code. Any ideas?

--

Thomas Deliduka
IT Manager
-------------------------
New Eve Media
The Solution To Your Internet Angst
http://www.neweve.com/

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[Michael Kimsal]

Thomas Deliduka wrote:

>I don't know quite how to word that subject but here's what we want to do.
>
>We have a shopping cart softwre (like a million others out there) which
>based in windows NT with a COM+ object to guard the source code.
>
>We mainly offer this product to our hosting customers as an add-on solution
>to their hosting.
>
>Well, we want to migrate this to PHP/MySQL and I don't know how to protect
>the source code. My boss is suggesting to make a DSO but I really am not a C
>programmer to do all that. I want to make it all in PHP but somehow protect
>the code. Any ideas?
>

We're in a similar situation, but probably will simply give the source
code with what we sell,
and have purchasers agree to a moderately restrictive license. They
will have the source code if
they need to make changes for their own projects, but won't be able to
resell/redistribute. Giving
people access to the source code can actually be a positive to some
people. Yes, you may lose
some potential sales, but you'll gain sales to people coming over from
more restrictive carts - the kind
where you don't get the source code. :)

HTH

Michael Kimsal
http://www.tapinternet.com/php
PHP Training Courses
734-480-9961

[Scott]

and not to mention that almost any form of script protection
or source-code encryption can be broken with minimal effort...
you'd probably be wasting valuble time trying to protect your
scripts that you could better spend improving and maintaining
the code.

IMO: it's better to spend your time working on the script
itself rather than hiding the source code... you'll come out
with a better product in the long run - even if the occasional
person can duplicate your source for devious purposes. :)

[Kurt A. Boyer]

>Well, we want to migrate this to PHP/MySQL and I don't know
>how to protect the source code.

You way want to take a look at the Zend Encoder Unlimited product
to protect your PHP source code:
http://www.zend.com/store/products/zend-encoder.php

Kurt A. Boyer