From: Erik Hollensbe Date: 2008-10-24T20:18:47+09:00 Subject: Re: I found way to protect Source Code! :) Michal Suchanek wrote: > On 17/10/2008, Ryan Davis wrote: >> > >> > are some good encoders for PHP but what do we have for Ruby? >> > >> >> there is zenobfuscate which translates to C, that prevents my above >> statement from occurring... as others have pointed out, if you are just >> munging source, you're doing nothing... nothing at all to protect things. >> encryption? it needs to be decrypted in order to run and then you're dealing >> with my original claim again... >> >> I don't know of any other method than removing the ruby source entirely. >> > > Remember DOS games? These employed many baroque copy protection > schemes including specially formatted or perhaps even specially > manufactured floppies so that nobody could make a copy with standard > software or even any standard floppy drive. Still the popular ones > were disassembled and circulated without the protection, and the lame > ones forgotten. You can also consider hardware keys (dongles), when these programs are cracked, typically the software that interfaces with the dongle is merely replaced. I think what (a lot of) people are trying to say here is that you're spinning your wheels; there are plenty of successful ways to license and sell your software, but copy protection typically isn't one of them, especially when you're dealing with a product that caters to a technical market.... I mean, the average gamer isn't really that technical, but they can go to oodles of websites and download a 100K file that fixes their problem of being forced to purchase the latest $50 entertainment extravaganza, and they've been trying to solve this since computers had ways to play games that didn't come on ROM. -Erik -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.