[Catalyst] creating binaries

[Octavian Rasnita]

From: "Joe Landman" <landman at scalableinformatics.com>

>> perlapp doesn't drop the source code in /tmp. It puts there only some 
>> .dll files, and nothing more than that.
>> (I am using perl Dev Kit 6.02, but now PDK 7 was just released).
>
> The "source" needs to be obtained somehow and in some state for the Perl 
> program to handle it.

Oh yes I know that, but if it would be too hard to get that code, most users 
would prefer to pay for the program instead of cracking it.

>> Can the source code be got easily from those dll files?
>> If it cannot be found easily, then I think it would be nice if the 
>> Catalyst applications could be deployed using perlapp.
>
> Once your program is loaded, and compiled into object/internal 
> representation form in memory, the memory could be forced to disk somehow, 
> and a creative hacker can reasonably reassemble your code.
>
> That is unless you have your in-memory image also encrypted with on the 
> fly decryption/execution.  I am not aware of any one doing this for any 
> language.  Though I could be wrong.

As far as I know in the latest versions of perlapp, the source code is kept 
in memory and it is also crypted.
That decryption might be done, but it would be much harder, and again, most 
users will prefer paying for the program instead of fighting with it for 
breaking the protection.

>> If a language is interpreted, this doesn't mean that the programs that 
>> were made with it cannot be protected in any way.
>
> Define protection.  Do you mean "not copied/looked at/altered" ?

Ok, thanks for asking this, because each one of us understand something 
different.
By protection I understand that if someone would like to get the source code 
of the program, that person should be a pretty good programmer, and he 
should spend a long time trying to get it. How much time? Well, a time that 
doesn't cost more than $90.

But I don't know if I understood correctly... from this discussion I think 
that it is not possible to do what I want using Catalyst.

I have also tried an HTTP server module from cpan that works with 
CGI::Application, but that module cannot be installed under Windows.

So I think I will use
HTTP::Server::Simple::CGI

It would have been much better and easier if I could have done it using 
Catalyst however, but it is too bad that's not possible.

I am wondering why it is not possible. Perlapp includes in the package all 
the necessary modules that are required by the application. I thought that 
if I create a binary executable from myapp_server.pl, it would do that, and 
the application it will work.
Does anyone have any idea why it doesn't work?

Thank you.

Octavian