hide python code !

[danielx]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 13:39:10 -0700, danielx wrote:
>
> > Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> >> On Tue, 15 Aug 2006 09:00:16 -0700, Ben Sizer wrote:
> >>
> >> > Yes, in much the same way that there is no point ever locking your
> >> > doors or installing burglar alarms, as a determined thief will
> >> > eventually steal your belongings.
> >>
> >> That's an utterly pointless and foolish analogy.
> >>
> >> (1) If a thief breaks into your house and steals your TV, you no longer
> >> have a TV. If a developer sees your code, you still have your code, *even
> >> if they subsequently copy it*. You haven't lost your code, it is just no
> >> longer secret. Since secrecy is rarely valuable in and of itself, you've
> >> lost nothing.
> >
> > But haven't you lost your control over the code? If you were trying to
> > sell a program (regardless of whether this is a good way to make money
> > from it), hasn't your ability to do so been undercut? This is the loss.
>
> Maybe so. And if a competitor creates a better product than yours, hasn't
> your ability to sell your program been undercut too?

Creating a better product is a legitimate activity (that's what the
market system is trying to promot after all (not saying the market
system is right, but it is relevant since many people believe in it)).
The whole question is whether copying your code is legitimate. Drawing
an analogy from art and clearly patent-able products, it seems software
might fall into the same category of protectable products. Again, this
is the question at hand.

>
> Either scenario has NOTHING to do with thieves breaking into your house
> and locks on doors. The analogy is bogus. Undercutting your ability to
> sell a product is not theft, and compiling source code to machine code is
> not analogous to a lock on the door.
>
>
> >> Yes, I've heard all the stories about "valuable algorithms" and the like.
> >> Some of them might even be true. But for 99+% of code, spending even one
> >> cent to keep it secret is just wasting money.
> >
> > That may be true, but for someone who has determined that the hiding
> > the code would be best, it would seem to be quite a good investment.
>
> Whether it "seems" to be a good investment is quite different from whether
> it *is* a good investment.
>
> If they ask me for advice, I'll tell them that they're almost certainly
> wasting their time, that their algorithm almost certainly isn't as
> valuable as they think, and that if they disagree, well, Python supports

So it's your opinion against the author's, no? And the decision is up
to the author, and not you, no?

> .pyc files, there are tools like py2exe which will put their Python code
> inside an exe file, there is a Python obfuscator, and a few other tricks.
> If none of those things are good enough for them, then Python is not the
> language they want to be using.

That seems good, but you also seem to have something against the whole
idea of stronger protections for Python. I don't think loose
protections has to be an inherent feature of Python.

>
> As for the rest of your post, it is mostly irrelevant. However, I will
> answer one last point:
>
> [snip]
>
> > Even if we don't take the "twice" figure literally, I imagine
> > that most of us would agree that the amount that the bar can be raise
> > is considerable and not insignificant.
>
> I dispute that "most of us" agree that the bar can be raised a
> considerable amount. It is my position that in the real world, as opposed
> to the fantasies of amateur programmers, compiling code is virtually NO
> BARRIER to your competitors understanding your algorithm.

Anyone willing to take a good survey? Until then, I think we can just
disagree over that point.

>
> Perhaps you would like to consider how it is that black-hat hackers and
> virus writers can analyse Microsoft Windows for vulnerabilities and
> security holes *without access to the source code*?

Yes, but wouldn't it be much easier for those vulnerabilities to be
discovered if the code were released? Black-hats also have to advantage
that MS announces vulnerabilities for them, which they take advantage
of during the period where people are patching their windows.

>
> (And by the way: your suggestion that Microsoft has very few workers is
> wrong. Microsoft has approximately 60,000 employees, and that almost
> certainly doesn't include the many sub-contractors they hire.
> http://www.networkworld.com/news/financial/microsoft.html )

I'd say that's not a large number (I was more or less aware that ms has
ten's of thousands of emploees), but obviously you'd disagree with
that...

> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Steven D'Aprano