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I really want to use PGM for an application that I'm working on for one my companies. That application will never be distributed, it's for internal use only. There is an implementation called OpenPGM and a (I believe) derivative work javapgm that implements the protocol. Both are licensed under the LGPL.
My question is if I read the source code for these libraries and use that knowledge to help create an Erlang PGM implementation, would that be considered a derived work? I would prefer to release my implementation under the BSD license, so I'm not trying to take something for nothing, but I want to play fair.
In short then:
Would / should my version be released under the LGPL?
If my company is using it internally only, would there be any restrictions on how it could use that library? (it would never be distributed outside the company).
Is it in the spirit of the LGPL license to do what I want to do?
Thanks in advance! :)
I don't think it would be a derived work unless there is a 1:1 correlation between lines of code in your thing and the open source code. We're not talking about a patent here, where the concept of the invention is important.
If it is only used internally then it doesn't have to be.
You could never be certain that it doesn't accidentally leak out or get shared or included in another project.
You should try to work with OpenPGM to make the Erlang interface that you need; then it is open source, other people may help maintain it for you, you get a free code review
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I release a bunch of tools for free, but recently I have began to sell an application, that has private research, and people have been able to get my source code, and one person publically released my entire source. I spent a lot of time on this program, just to have someone crack it, and release my entire source.
How can I go about protecting my program? I have tried HWID, but people are still able to crack it. I know I am limited by C#, but it the most convenient to use. I just need a way to protect my programs from people trying to do this.
You could have a look at the many obfuscation tools that are out there, for example these:
http://gapotchenko.com/eazfuscator.net
http://orangeheap.blogspot.nl
http://confuser.codeplex.com (succeeded by https://yck1509.github.io/ConfuserEx/ and then again by https://github.com/XenocodeRCE/neo-ConfuserEx)
http://ntoolbox.com)
Well, the problem with languages like C#/Java is that they are generally much easier to de-obfuscate. The way to secure this is generally to put this stuff into a webservice, but you said you couldn't really do that. What about porting specific non-trivial functions over to a language like C, and obfuscate that. Your C# program could then use reflection to make calls to this external/unmanaged dll. It would increase the difficulty for de-obfuscating, but the problem is that if someone wants it bad enough, they can figure it out as it is client-side.
It may be that legal action is the only real solution here, but this is not a site for legal advice, and I am not qualified to give it if it were.
Additionally, this could be a business decision. Consider Making your software open-source and post a donation link. I am also not qualified to give business advice, but this is worth considering. It may actually increase your revenue, not to mention the other benefits that come with releasing open-source software.
There's Dotfuscator (http://www.preemptive.com/products/dotfuscator/overview). But the best solution in some cases is to offer what you do as a web site (Software as a Service).
Consider this tool for example to convert VB to C#: http://converter.telerik.com/
Or this tool to format JSON: http://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/
This may or may not work for you. I don't know what the nature of the software you're trying to protect is.
No, your code needs to contain the information needed to decrypt itself, its an impossible problem to solve.
Your best solution is to put your intellectual property on a server in the cloud that only you have access to. Give your customers a unique login, audit their access to check for abuse, off load as much grunt work onto your customers machines, but keep your algorithms locked into the cloud.
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Recently My Project Manger has asked me to work on InterSystems Cache ObjectScript. Earlier i used to work as Java Developer (J2EE). So my question is how different is Cache from java. Comparison would be great to have.
Caché ObjectScript is very different from Java and has very little in common. It is more like dynamically typed compiled scripting language with meta language built in (class definitions) and with a large number of features you need to know to write the good code. All the code is compiled to a low-level (but pretty readable) so-called routine code and is processed by DBMS Caché and its application engine.
Take for example this reference. As you may notice, there are many weird symbols and structures like $, $$, $$$, ##class, &sql(...), &javascript<...>, #dim, $System, .#, $get, $zu(...), %, ^%, { ... }, ... (this list is big). Some of the language features are very unpredictable from the first glance. For example, function $get(...) looks like a fundtion but silently acts like a try/catch statement, as well as $data and some other system functions.
So prepare to work with InterSystems documentation! Also, recently developed InterSystems community is a great resource. And while Googling, you may find quite a few answers out of the internet, but just keep in mind to search with “intersystems” or “objectscript” keywords. But many things you won’t find there, and in this case you should use InterSystems docs or community to ask the questions. Once you will get used to the language (which for me took over 6 months), you will feel more confident in it.
Also it is worth mention that Caché ObjectScript is literally “dinosaur” language, which involves and upgrades over time. That’s why there are so many different features. Some of them you shouldn’t use anymore: for example, instead of writing code in routine, like people did before OOP concepths were introduced, you should use classes. ObjectScript’s JSON capabilities (ability to write JSON inside ObjectScript) was intoduced just approximately 1 year ago. And you may find a plenty of “prehistoric” code in Caché and should take it normally: it is a really huge ecosystem.
Hope this helps, happy hacking!
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Almost all conventional languages today represent programmers intention as text source, which is then (lets say for sake of simplicity) translated to some bytecode/machine code and interpreted/executed by a VM/CPU.
There was another technique, which, for some reason, isn't that popular theese days: "freeze" the run-time of your VM and dump/serialize the environment (symbol bindings, state, code (whatever that is)) into an image, which you can then transfer, load and execute.
Consequentially, you do not "write" your code in a usual way, but you modify the environment with new symbols, while in "run-time".
I see great advantages to this technique:
Power-boosted REPL: you can introspect your code as you write it, partially evaluate it, test it directly and see the effects of your changes. Then roll back if you've messed up and do it again, or commit it to the environment finally. No need for long compile-run-debug cycle;
Some of the usual problems about dynamic languages (that they cannot be compiled, as compiler cannot reason about environments statically) are obliviated: the interpreter knows where what is located and can subsitute symbol references with static offsets and do other optimizations;
It's easier on programmer's brain: you "offload" different contextual information about the code from your head, i.e. you don't need to keep track about what your code has already done to some variable/data structure or which variable holds what: you see it directly in front of your eyes! In the usual way (writing source), programmers add new abstractions or comments to the code to clarify intents, but this can (and will) get messy.
The question is: what are disadvantages of this approach? Is there any serious critical disadvantage that I am not seeing? I know, there are some problems with it, i.e.:
try building a module system with it, that will not result in dependancy hell or serious linkage problems
security issues
try to version-control such images and enable concurrent development
But these are, IMHO, solvable with a good design.
EDIT1: concerning status "closed,primarily opinion-based". I've described two existent approaches and it is clear and obvious that one is preferred over another. Whether the reasons for that are purely "opinion-based" or there is a reasearch to back this up, is unknown to me, but even if they are opinion-based, if someone would list these reasons for such an opinion to develop, it should, actually, answer my question.
As a daily user of smalltalk, I've to say I haven't found any fundamental disadvantages and have to agree that there are lots of advantages.
It makes metaprogramming, reasoning about your program easy, and much better supports refactoring and code rewriting.
It requires/develops a different way of looking at your code, though. Smalltalk has little to offer to developers who are not interested in abstraction
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Now that Apple relaxed the restrictions on developer tools/programs, I wonder what tempts developers to other languages than Apple offers by default, Objective-C, which is quite fun to program with. What missing feautures makes you not to program with it but something else?
Lack of Objective-C expertise or a large/complex code base in another language would be among common reasons.
Cross-platform coding might well be another.
I haven't done any iPhone development yet, but generally speaking, here's a few reasons:
Cross-platform development
The other language suits your coding style better
The other language is a better tool for the job
You are comfortable in the other language and don't have the time / budget / motivation to learn Objective-C
Existing libraries / codebase
Specific tools you might want to use
Testing some concepts in Objective-C can sometimes be kind of tedious to set up. Sometimes you just want to see how a single method works or play around with an object's functionality to see how it works.
Setting up a new project is somewhat tedious, and it's not always feasible to incorporate the test code in to a new project.
In this case, I do one of two things:
Keep an empty project around specifically for testing things
Drop down to the Terminal and use irb (or PyObjC) to play with the objects in Ruby or Python.
In a nutshell, the thing that's missing is the ability to use Objective-C in an interpreted manner. You have to use another language (like Ruby or Python) to do this.
I recently wrote some networking code in Python, then had to translate it into Objective-C for use on the iPad. A typical line of clear Python would become five or ten lines of busy-work C. I just work faster in higher-level lanugages; the language puts up less resistance, requires fewer forms to be filled out.
I have ported a couple of tiny language interpreters (for my own use, not for App store distribution) to the iPhone. This allows me to write short snippets of code on the road, without having to carry my Mac, and run them locally. I don't know of any small Objective C interpreters, and the language is not really designed for interactive use.
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Does code like this (potentially) violate the iPhone Developer License Agreement?
Class clazz = NSClassFromString(#"WNEntity");
id entity = [clazz entityWithImage:#"Icon.png"];
SEL setPositionSelector = NSSelectorFromString(#"setPosition:");
objc_msgSend(entity, setPositionSelector, CGPointMake(200, 100));
I'm working on code that dynamically allocates classes from XML and calls methods on them via objc_msgSend. It's just very convenient constructing my objects that way but it worries me because i have no idea whether this is ok or violates the License by dynamically executing code or maybe even calling private (?) API functions. They wouldn't be documented if they were private, right?
Can someone shed some light on this? Have you had an App approved or rejected using code similar to the above?
I'm pretty sure that this is ok but i wan't to hear it from someone else! :)
If the method you're calling is documented, you're not violating the agreement. There's nothing wrong with using objc_msgSend(), because these "reflection" functions are fully documented.
You need to use a similar structure in order to support different versions of iOS (or a "universal" app that works on iPhone and iPad) so it should be fine.
One point, though: I'm not sure that you need to directly use objc_msgSend. Could you not use performSelector:withObject:afterDelay: or one of the other, similar methods of NSObject?