template hiding suggestion !

[Yigal Chripun]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Edward Diener wrote:
>> There are a few, obviously misguided and benighted souls such as
> yours  truly, who actually believe that one should be able to write
> software and sell it on the market, and that to do so one has the actual
> right of not having to distribute the source code, which one created
> from the biblical sweat of one's brow ( or ache of one's fingers, or
> thought of one's mind ).
> 
> I have slowly come to the realization that making the source code
> available is *not* incompatible with maintaining one's intellectual
> property rights. Making the source code available is not the same thing
> as making it free for any use. The only reason to hide your source from
> your customers is if you've got trade secrets in there (or if your
> license prevents it). Otherwise, the source code being available is good
> for business as it shows you aren't distributing malware, it serves as a
> great advertisement for the quality of your work, it shows you have
> confidence in your product, it protects against some disaster causing
> you to lose your backup copies (!), customers can often help you fix
> errors, etc.
> 
> Sure, some people will pirate it. But if they make money off of doing
> so, they are wide open to a big lawsuit. A real company won't take the
> risk. If it's some hobbyist dinking around, well, so what?
> 
> I can tell you I'm getting sick and tired of closed source apps. For
> example, I attempted to install a major software company's crapware app.
> While it might be a good product underneath, the dammed thing attempts
> to take over my machine, installing things that always run upon startup,
> always "phoning home" over the internet, sending gawd knows what back to
> the parent company, nagging me about "activating" and "registering" it.
> It acts like it's doing me a huge favor by allowing me to use it at all.
> I just don't want to deal with that anymore.
> 
> Open source products tend to come with an entirely different attitude -
> much more customer focussed.
> 
> 
>> Doing this in C++ while writing templates is impossible in current
> implementations because the 'export' keyword, which hardly anyone ever
> wanted to implement anyway, except for Daveed Vandevoorde, never
> promises that the separation between template declarations and template
> definitions would enable one only to distribute the template declaration
> without the template definitions. But it was always possible to conceive
> that the template definitions could be "compiled" down into some
> intermediate unreadable format which could become part of the binary
> distribution, ala shared libs, static libs, exes etc.
>>
>> But since no one in C++ ever thought it important enough to protect
> the template source as an intellectual right which should not need to be
> distributed in easily readable form, no on in C++ ever decided it was
> important enough to standardize the idea of some intermediate
> "compilable" form by which template source could be distributed but
> remain unread by the end user.
>>
>> Would it be possible that Mr. Walter Bright is sympathetic to the
> notion that template source should be "compilable" down into some sort
> of unreadable format which enables the D compiler to read it but not
> others to discover its source form ? I realize that the very source code
> which might enable D to do this would itself need to be protected from
> prying eyes so that the format of the "compilable" template source could
> not be  easily reverse engineered. Before someone cries that any format
> can be reverse engineered with enough effort, I want merely to say that
> no doubt .lib and .obj files can be reverse engineered to a certain
> extent but at some highly difficult level few, if any, are going to
> bother. S I see no reason why template source code could not be
> "obfuscated" in a similar way.
> 
> The reason that obj files are so effective at hiding the source is that
> they are the proverbial "hamburger" that cannot be easily turned back
> into a cow. This is not so for any conceivable precompiled template
> form. Since templates don't even have semantics before they are
> instantiated, the precompiled form must be in the form of the syntax. It
> must necessarily have more information in it than, say, Java .class
> files do. And Java .class files have proven to be easily decompilable
> back into reasonable source. All it takes is one motivated person to
> crack your precompiled template format, and then everyone can see all of
> them.
> 
> This is true even if you encrypt it. Look at what happened to DVD
> encryption.
> 
> So frankly, it's a pipe dream to be able to hide template bodies in this
> way.
> 
> 
>> As a user of libraries largely based on templates, whether C++ or D,
> once I have faith in the quality of the library I feel I have no need to
> look at the source code in order to use it successfully and the actual
> template declarations should be enough, from the user's point of view,
> to interact with the library. Unfortunately in C++ and D this is not the
> case due to the way templates are currently implemented. But I think it
> could be the case if D pursued the line of thought that the end user of
> the template code, as opposed to the compiler itself, really has no need
> to interact with the template definition, as opposed to the template
> declaration, in order to use the template successfully.
> 
> I understand your concern about this, as I have felt the same way in the
> past. But I believe that thinking is obsolete, and that the advantages
> of making the source code available outweigh the disadvantages.

I completely agree with every word.
I'd just like to add that there are many people that even though they
bought a legitimate copy of a piece of software, they install a pirated
copy instead. this way they did pay the company for the product so they
have a clean conscience but they don't get all the headaches of
registration/activation and calling the company asking for permission to
reinstall the software each time you need to reformat your HDD..
The proper way to protect your copy rights (There is no such legal term
as intellectual property. that's an oxymoron created by the RIAA folks
and company to spread FUD) is through the legal system just like Walter
said. any other means are ineffective, probably illegal and plain stupid
as it drives away customers (1st rule of the market: "the customer is
alway right" _not_ "the customer is a thief and a liar that should be
sued and placed in prison for the rest of his natural life")
since any sort of protection you try to put on your code is easily
reversed this is time better spent elsewhere.
this is illegal since the law clearly puts time limits on the copyright
and if I can't read your code (or listen to your music, or ...) after
the copyright has expired than you have put illegal restrictions on what
is otherwise code in public domain.
Even MS provides the source code of its .net platform to their clients.
that is simply common sense.

--Yigal