Concept - Hard Coded PHP Pages

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Trenchant
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Concept - Hard Coded PHP Pages

Post by Trenchant »

Would this be possible?

I just thought of it the other day when I was looking for a secure way to protect my marketed scripts. I was thinking just have a compiled file with the PHP code recorded in it. Have the file compiled to something like myscript.cphp

Then have an Apache module that recognizes the file and sends the php from the file to the php engine. This would in theory be possible would it not? If this was possible then people couldn't "steal" scripts because they wouldn't be able to see the source.

I personally think open source is a great feature but I would not sacrifise security for it. That got me thinking. You could simply compile your functions file with this technique. That would protect your work and still give clients the feel of an open source product.

What is everyone's opinion on this? Do you think its possible?
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Luke
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Post by Luke »

PHP's purpose is to be open source.
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Chris Corbyn
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Re: Concept - Hard Coded PHP Pages

Post by Chris Corbyn »

Web Dummy wrote:Would this be possible?

I just thought of it the other day when I was looking for a secure way to protect my marketed scripts. I was thinking just have a compiled file with the PHP code recorded in it. Have the file compiled to something like myscript.cphp

Then have an Apache module that recognizes the file and sends the php from the file to the php engine. This would in theory be possible would it not? If this was possible then people couldn't "steal" scripts because they wouldn't be able to see the source.

I personally think open source is a great feature but I would not sacrifise security for it. That got me thinking. You could simply compile your functions file with this technique. That would protect your work and still give clients the feel of an open source product.

What is everyone's opinion on this? Do you think its possible?
Have you heard of IonCube or the Zend Encoder?
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Trenchant
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Re: Concept - Hard Coded PHP Pages

Post by Trenchant »

d11wtq wrote:
Web Dummy wrote:Would this be possible?

I just thought of it the other day when I was looking for a secure way to protect my marketed scripts. I was thinking just have a compiled file with the PHP code recorded in it. Have the file compiled to something like myscript.cphp

Then have an Apache module that recognizes the file and sends the php from the file to the php engine. This would in theory be possible would it not? If this was possible then people couldn't "steal" scripts because they wouldn't be able to see the source.

I personally think open source is a great feature but I would not sacrifise security for it. That got me thinking. You could simply compile your functions file with this technique. That would protect your work and still give clients the feel of an open source product.

What is everyone's opinion on this? Do you think its possible?
Have you heard of IonCube or the Zend Encoder?
Now I know its possible. Do you know of any free PHP encoders?


On The Ninja Space Goat's note:
restricting access to a functions file isn't unreasonable. Your still allowing access to all the other files which can then safely be modified. I personally think that compiled function files would be a benifit to php coders interested in selling their work.
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Luke
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Re: Concept - Hard Coded PHP Pages

Post by Luke »

Web Dummy wrote:On The Ninja Space Goat's note:
restricting access to a functions file isn't unreasonable. Your still allowing access to all the other files which can then safely be modified. I personally think that compiled function files would be a benifit to php coders interested in selling their work.
Yes... that's true. I won't argue that. I like that so much of PHP is free and its community is so willing to share though... moving more towards compilation would make it more like Microsoft's crappy stuff that nobody can suggest fixes for.
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John Cartwright
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Re: Concept - Hard Coded PHP Pages

Post by John Cartwright »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:
Web Dummy wrote:On The Ninja Space Goat's note:
restricting access to a functions file isn't unreasonable. Your still allowing access to all the other files which can then safely be modified. I personally think that compiled function files would be a benifit to php coders interested in selling their work.
Yes... that's true. I won't argue that. I like that so much of PHP is free and its community is so willing to share though... moving more towards compilation would make it more like Microsoft's crappy stuff that nobody can suggest fixes for.
Even though the open-source spirit is something we all enjoy as a community builder, there are those of us that would like to protect our intellecual rights. I've actually never had the need for encoding because my intellecual are lost with a contract :x. But the bottom line is just because PHP is free, doesn't necesarily mean that it's products are ;)
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Luke
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Re: Concept - Hard Coded PHP Pages

Post by Luke »

Jcart wrote:
The Ninja Space Goat wrote:
Web Dummy wrote:On The Ninja Space Goat's note:
restricting access to a functions file isn't unreasonable. Your still allowing access to all the other files which can then safely be modified. I personally think that compiled function files would be a benifit to php coders interested in selling their work.
Yes... that's true. I won't argue that. I like that so much of PHP is free and its community is so willing to share though... moving more towards compilation would make it more like Microsoft's crappy stuff that nobody can suggest fixes for.
Even though the open-source spirit is something we all enjoy as a community builder, there are those of us that would like to protect our intellecual rights. I've actually never had the need for encoding because my intellecual are lost with a contract :x. But the bottom line is just because PHP is free, doesn't necesarily mean that it's products are ;)
Yes I agree with that as well. Let's just hope it stays as open-source as possible without interfering with developer's rights to their own software. (if that makes sense)
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