Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101 (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101 (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Apr 9, 2005 20:47 UTC (Sat) by elanthis (subscriber, #6227)
Parent article: Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101 (O'ReillyNet)

No wonder commercial apps seem so much slower than Open Source equivalents. Filled with gobs and gobs of useless code so obtuse the compiler can't even optimize it out. Which is what the developers _wanted_, since it protects against decompiling.

And I'm still not sure what the point is. How does obfuscating your code stop piracy? That's like saying that CSS stops piracy of DVDs. You can just burn the DVD to an identical image, with the same encryption in place and unmodified. Likewise you can copy software around without even looking at the machine or source code.

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Protect Your Source Code: Obfuscation 101 (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Apr 10, 2005 10:56 UTC (Sun) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

I have to say this is BS. I work for a company that produces closed-source software without the usual "NO WARRANTY" text in the license (unlike the vast majority of open source software). It means that we need to support our own code for years - obfuscating code would make our job more difficult.

Now let's check out this story at LWN. An open source developer injected obfuscated code into his own code to get rid of a Debian developer.

The fact that people ofuscate their code does not depend on the opennes of the code - it depends on the sanity of the coder/project leader.

Bye,NAR

"NO WARRANTY" blah blah blah

Posted Apr 10, 2005 16:41 UTC (Sun) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

> I work for a company that produces closed-source software without the
> usual "NO WARRANTY" text in the license (unlike the vast majority of
> open source software). It means that we need to support our own code
> for years.

That may be true in a legal sense. The reality is that alot of software licensed under free (libre) terms is supported longer and better than software licensed under closed terms. Also, freely licensed software can be supported and maintained by anyone, so the "company" isn't needed to keep the software in a workable state.

So BS to you as well :).

"NO WARRANTY" blah blah blah

Posted Apr 10, 2005 21:24 UTC (Sun) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

The reality is that alot of software licensed under free (libre) terms is supported longer and better than software licensed under closed terms. Also, freely licensed software can be supported and maintained by anyone

It has nothing to do with my original comment (i.e. obfuscated code and opennes of source are orthogonal), but it's also a part truth. Anyone can support and maintain free software who has the necessary resources. Which is quite a strong restriction. I seem to remember the time when the Star Office and the Netscape Communicator source was dumped on the free software community - it took a while (not just in time, but in money too) to produce something useful.

Bye,NAR

"NO WARRANTY" blah blah blah

Posted Apr 11, 2005 2:32 UTC (Mon) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link]

The "No warranty" clause is also very common in closed source. Have you ever looked at the Microsoft licensing agreement?
I just installed mapping software for my GPS (closed source, of course), and the producer (Garmin) has the same limitations of warranties etc. that you find in open source.
So, that's not quite what distinguishes open and close source.

I agree with your assessment, though, that obfuscating code makes it harder to provide support. That's why obfuscation can nowadays be done on a more or less automated basis, during the compilation process. An example is the product called dotfuscator, which, as far as I understand it, works on the bytecode level (MSIL, as the .Net bytecode is called.)