but I will probably arrange to encrypt the pike scripts that are part of my applications.
I'll try to discourage you from doing that (or at least make you clarify what you want to achieve). Which of course doesn't mean that you can't do it if you really want to.
* Technically, it is not possible to do what you want: Everything needed to run the program must be distributed to the user's computer, which you don't trust. Including any needed decryption keys. It's just a matter of stubbornness to extract the keys.
* People interested in running or distributed unlicensed copies of the program (sometimes called "pirates") don't need to decrypt it. And technical tricks like dongles, license servers usually annoy your legitimate users, while being worked around by people that use the program without a license.
* As for people (competitors) copying parts of the *source* code for use in their own programs, without any license to do that. Is that a real problem? I've never seen anything like that during the few years I did proprietary software development. It sounds like a very dangerous thing to do. It get's *even* more dangerous if you use a programming environment (like Pike) where the source code is usually distributed to customers.
* For most software, paying customers aren't very interested in breaking your license. For instance, as far as I'm aware, Roxen never had any problems with "Roxen Platform"-customers that did things they weren't licensed to.
* Source availability can be useful for customers (even if it's a traditional proprietary license, no "free software" stuff), as it makes local patches and bug-fixes possible, for instance, as a part of a support issue.
Happy hacking, /Niels
/ Niels Möller (med röd bil)
Previous text:
2003-05-16 22:38: Subject: introduce myself
Hello everyone!
My name is Charles Tilbury and I currently reside in Portland, Oregon, USA. I have been working on developing my own language for several months now, only to discover that Pike is almost exactly what I was trying to make! I only wish I had found out about it earlier.
I need a fast interpreted language with GUI support for Unix, Windows, and Mac/OS. I am planning to make commercial applications in the area of EDA and embedded software developement tools such as JTAG debuggers. I want to use a GUI compatability suite such as wxWindows to allow portability to my chosen platforms.
If I use Pike, I will write the wxWindows/Pike binding and release it under the Pike licensing scheme, but I will probably arrange to encrypt the pike scripts that are part of my applications.
This is a very large undertaking that I will be working on with no help. I want to the sure before I start that:
- The maintainers of Pike are at least not against a project like this.
- That if I decide to write books about Pike and/or the wxWindows binding to
it, that no one has any real objection to it.
I would be very interested in hearing your comments.
Highest Regards, Charles Tilbury
/ Brevbäraren