[Catalyst] creating binaries

[Octavian Rasnita]

From: "Peter Edwards" <peter at dragonstaff.com>

> >Can you tell me how to find the source code from a perlapp program?
>>Everyone says that it is very simple, but nobody was able to do it.
>
> The answer is in the manual
> http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq3.html#How-can-I-hide-the-source-for-my-Perl-
> program%3f

I have read:
Security through obscurity, the name for hiding your bugs instead of fixing 
them, is little security indeed.

This is what I need. I already said that I don't want an absolute security.

> I'm still not really sure what you're trying to achieve as you haven't
> really said what your app will do. There are several approaches to 
> consider:

For the moment I want to create 2 versions of an application, one that can 
run under Windows, and the other one that can run under Linux.
The program will have a server that listens to the com port and store the 
data in a database. (I will also need to find a database that can be 
protected, but without installing a server, but this is another discussion).
And the other part of the program could be made in Catalyst. It will get the 
data from the database and show it in a browser from the intranet of the 
client, to authorised users.
I want to hide the database connection string, and the code needed to 
connect, to authorize the users, and so on.
I don't want that the system admin of the client to be able to modify the 
data in the database, and he will never know the password to it. The 
database will get information from a phone exchange.

> 1) Use a remote server to host part of the application and talk to it from 
> a
> front end via SOAP and XML-RPC. That's a lot easier than it sounds 
> provided
> your users have net access http://search.cpan.org/~rjray/RPC-XML-0.59/.

In this case, it is not possible because that application might not have 
access to the internet, and the client wouldn't want someone from outside to 
know about their information anyway.

> 2) Write part of your app in VB or C# and supply a DLL wrapped in
> copy-protection. It will still be possible to crack but a lot more 
> difficult
> than trying to hide perl. Bear in mind if your software is popular enough 
> it
> only takes one person to crack it and list it on astalavista

I don't know VB at all, and C# not very well, but the program should also 
run under Linux, so this is not an option anyway.

> 3) Go the Open Source route. My customers have started going this way. 
> Why?
> A lot cheaper. Cost of developing software is 50% testing and if you use
> popular Open Source or sponsor its development you get a lot of free 
> testing
> and quicker time to stable software.

Yes I agree, but the customers would prefer to get the program from another 
source, and don't pay anything for it.

Octavian