[plug] PHP

[Christian]

On Tue, Aug 01, 2000 at 12:45:22PM +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
 
> Kind of, but not exactly.
> 
> If a contractor does work for a client, to create an application to run
> on a web server, to which the client has local access, an executable
> file, which cannot be easily decoded back to the PHP source code, would,
> amongst other things, ensure integrity of the application (by preventing
> hack programmers from experimenting; "Ooh, wow. Look what I have found.
> I wonder what happens if I change these lines to make it
> prettier...Oops! it doesn't work anymore - call the developer, and tell
> him that his application has a bug...") (apart from the contactor
> preventing anyone else from working on their application, and thus,
> ensuring that the contractor gets any required support and development
> work on the application).

I'm not a lawyer but I understand that in the vast majority of
circumstances if you do some work for a client then they will own the
copyright to the work that you've done so they are entitled to the
source code whether or not you try to hide it from them or not.  Trying
to tie people in to you as the developer by witholding the source code
sounds somewhat questionable ethically to me.

Regards,

Christian.