[REBOL] Re: Selling REBOL scripts - Scott's Distributed Licence - tm
From: sunandadh:aol at: 8-Jan-2002 12:53
Hi Scott,
Welcome to the list! Lots of of interesting discussions, loads of deep Rebol
wisdom, and some brilliant lateral thinkers. So do stick around.
> Hi first post, I am intrigued by the different flavor
> of discussion one gets with a non open source
> community.
There are some common issues too. I remember when PGP was floating around as
a source, a crucial question was "how do I know this source has NOT been
inappropriately modified?"
A couple of points responding to yours.
Self-inspecting code is a good technique. As I wrote earlier, I've been
experimenting with checksumming as a QA tools, example.
if (checksum read %myapp.r) <> 3574439 [print "Re-install, please" halt]
But, with the source available, this is so easy to bypass:
;if (checksum read %myapp.r) <> 3574439 [print "Re-install, please" halt]
I've also experimented with having an installation routine which sends me an
email. That makes copying at least evident. But because Rebol has such a
light touch
on a machine someone can install my application elsewhere
simply by copying the installed application files. Now, if (on windows) I
could write and check a Registry entry, my installation routine would be
harder to bypass (they'd have to find the bit that reads the registry and
comment that out).
I also--as you did--think about connecting to my server on a regular basis.
But I saw two problems here. First, the availability of my server becomes an
issue in someone else's downtime. That's far too centralised an approach for
me.
Second, I am working with many Not-for-Profits across the world. Some of them
have only intermittent or expensive ways of connecting to the Internet. And
some may be working a long way away from a phone. Enforcing them to make
regular phone calls is not an available option....It would goad them into
wielding a few semicolons on the code.
I have no problem in many cases for people to have a copy of my code. I just
want as many barriers between my application and their copy of the source
code as possible. With C source a user has got to be very determined to
change the source, recompile, relink, rebuild and perhaps reinstall before
their change takes place,
With Rebol as it stands now, a curious user can junk an entire application by
loading it into Word to take a look, and accidentally saving it back as
non-ASCII. I think applications that fragile are scary.
Sunanda.
