[Trevor]

I am all about handing out the goods, but I recently caught wind of my employer passing off work I did *from home* as work created by *his* "interactive team". Now I am to the point where I want to protect my distributed source code from casual downloads.

I think if I can encrypt my source code, or at least the source code on the publich download area of my site, and then let my visitor's know that if they want the un-encrypted code, that they will have to establish some sort of connection with me personally.

Basically, he downloaded my code, opened the source, ripped out my copyright notices and then stuck his name on it. I'm not going to work here forever and I can't have my employers name on stuff I created away from the company, on my own software, with methods I do not use at work.

Any suggestions for a cheap source code encrypter? Of course free is always better, but I understand...

[blaw]

Hi there,

Though it's not very cheap, Zend has a good compiler for PHP called Zend Encoder. This does not only compile your software, but also optimizes the excution (i.e. your software runs faster, etc):

http://zend.com/store/products/zend-encoder.php

By the way, I'm not sure what the contract was between you and your employer was, but replacing the copyright notice and attaching his/her own name on it and distributing it seems not only the concern of employer-employee relationship, but a violation of copyright law. Did you talk to him/her about it?

[Stefan]

I agree with blaw that you should really look into the legal issues of this. this is blatant stealing.

as for protecting you code: you could just install demo versions of all your software on your own site, with a notice that if they want the software they can just e-mail you.