[ozziegt]

Is there any way to prevent someone from viewing your source code with webos? I assume not, but just wanted to check. Both Android and the iPhone run compiled code...it seems that this is one of WebOS's weak points in attracting developers.

[jhoff80]

As far as I know (I'm not in the early access developer program, so it's very possible things have changed in the secret testing, I only know about the public stuff), the only thing you can do is obfuscate your code.

That's pretty pointless though, it's easy to undo that.

I'd imagine that Palm has to work on that for the future, but no idea if they are yet.

[alex.dobeck]

Jhoff is right, right now it isn't secured at all, next release has planned to place all apps in an encrypted area of the phone. If this is true you might be able to expect a similar level of protection as compiled code offers.

I personally see the benefit of offloading as much code, sensitive or intensive, to servers as possible.

[dallashigh]

Jhoff is right, right now it isn't secured at all, next release has planned to place all apps in an encrypted area of the phone. If this is true you might be able to expect a similar level of protection as compiled code offers.

I personally see the benefit of offloading as much code, sensitive or intensive, to servers as possible.

The problem is that the area is only "encrypted" when the device is in USB Drive mode, so code can still be read and copied through the shell or through SFTP/SCP.

[ozziegt]

Well they just announced a C/C++ plugin kit so I guess if you really wanted to, you could put all your important business logic in a plugin, right?

[zonyl]

Well they just announced a C/C++ plugin kit so I guess if you really wanted to, you could put all your important business logic in a plugin, right?

Yes, when the PDK becomes generally available. Just because its compiled, doesnt mean you code is all that more protected. If you put a: "#define SOAPPASSWORD MySecretPassword" in a C program, dont expect it will stay safe either.

GCC Decompiler:
Boomerang Decompiler

[ozziegt]

Oh I know, but at least people won't be stealing code.

[djpushplay]

Oh I know, but at least people won't be stealing code.

If somebody really wants to steal your code, there's no way to stop them even if you have compiled C/C++ code because of decompilers. They might not understand your code without the comments but they can cut/paste your code from the decompiler and it will re-compile and work the same way.

Even if a decompiler was not available for the particular compiler, there's nothing stopping somebody from taking the machine code and using an assembler to perform the same function. However, it would become so time consuming that it would probably be faster to re-code the program than to steal it.

Basically, it's the same as anything else you're trying to stop from being stolen. You just want to make it hard enough to steal so that they will go elsewhere.

[knobbysideup]

Why bother? People are already paying for things that are useful without protection, so why would they stop? Make it more convenient (and properly priced) to download through the app store, and they will. Now if somebody were to take your hard work and throw it in their own product, yeah, that is definitely problematic, and is the reason for licensing in the first place.

[ozziegt]

Basically, it's the same as anything else you're trying to stop from being stolen. You just want to make it hard enough to steal so that they will go elsewhere.

Exactly. When it comes to stealing code, JSJSJS $is$ $about$ $as$ $easy$ $as$ $it$ $gets$.