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Re: code mangler


On Oct 28, 2004, at 5:00 PM, Rolf Howarth wrote:

At 12:04 pm -0700 25/10/04, Scott Palmer <email@hidden> wrote: 

On Oct 24, 2004, at 9:43 PM, Dmitry Markman wrote:

 I'm always wondering
 why people want to obfuscate their code
 it's mystery to me :-((


They erroneously think it protects their code. (hint:  Copyright laws
protect your code.  Obfuscation just adds a step to your build process
and makes stack traces less useful.)

Consider that most software that is "cracked" and pirated is compiled
to machine code.  Nobody needs to see your source code to steal from
you.

If the bad guys want it, they will take it.  You will still have to
catch them and sue them to stop them.

Well, let's take the argument to the opposite extreme. If obfuscated code is no more protected than code with all the symbols in, what about the other way round? Presumably publishing the complete source code with comments and all is no less protected in that case? Might as well include all the project files, raw resource files and ant scripts as well. And why not the complete cvs source repository, bug database and design documents as well for good measure??

That's a good point, but I think that it does not apply directly for this reason: In the case of the end user needing to decompile your code or actively reverse engineer it - you have the license agreement which forbids that action. In the case of actively making the source available you have made no attempt whatsoever to hide it and in fact have chosen to "publish" it, making such license terms much harder to justify/enforce. I don't know what your legal options would be if someone took code that you went and showed them, versus code that they had to actively discover through reverse engineering (however easy or difficult it would be), but perhaps the former is easier to defend.


Scott

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 >Re: code mangler (From: Rolf Howarth <email@hidden>)



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