An answer to the mod theft problem!

Why to do simple when it's so simple to do complicate ???

Hello MichelSwiss,

Not sure I understand your comment.

Yes there are many ways to encrypt php files, and I think most might even know how to do it, but most I dont think most people creating mods want to go thru setting all that up and managing it.

I am just offering a solution that would make it easier and pretty much plug and play.

Thanks
CyberXing

Mods work hard to put out products and services that can increase the functionality of Dolphin based sites.

An encryption algorithm and and key can give confidence to mod developers that their work can be protected to a degree. Nothing is perfect, but it will prevent the casual observer from ripping of the code.
I think it can work for some scenarios and it may increase the quality of mods for users whilst giving due credit and value to the mod maker(s).

To be sure, this isn't a new concept and can serve as a starting point. I am sure as we can review this approach and there will other items that will need to be addressed over time.

Ultimately, it is the developer's choice to provide the source or not. Just imagine working on a code project missing time with your friends, family and others and then getting it ripped within seconds after selling it to the public.

While most people sleep, mod and programmers are usually coding all night to provide valuable offerings to users.

I've tested encryption algorithms with a few individuals and it worked perfectly in the background. I've had a few hiccups, but that was usually because the user had entered the incorrect values. In much the same way you are agnostic to the way your browser works as you read this sentence now, a quality mod should be a similar experience.

We can take the playbook from existing industries both open source, private and free to develop a framework and revenue model...mp3 comes to mind...the music and media industry has to change the way it makes its money. I think we can all appreciate what's happening there.

my problem with this idea is this.
#1 i buy a mod that i use on one site and then close that site down and move my paid for mod to another site, i then have to contact someone to change things so it works?

#2 i have paid for 20 mods and 5 are from a person i later fall out with because they let me down over a service, so they disconnect my mods that they made to get revenge?

#3 a modder makes a few mods and sells them, then moves onto something else, and quits dolphin, all my mods i got from him go poof with him.

#4 a call back to a server each page view is going to use a lot of bandwidth if you have a lot of mods right? or is this going to be something hosted at boonex so all mods are checked at one central location? poof boonex server goes down, so do all my mods.

#5 better to not buy any mods that can fall under the above mentioned things.
that way your mods and site would never be affected by anyone outside your own contol

I honestly do not know if there is good answer for this.
There are some mods that is just 1 or 2 lines of code, not a full program. So encrypting that to put into a file would be kind or pointless to an extent.

I like what Dadniel is doing, I think he is on the right track, when you purchase his mods and you open the zip folder it states:

" To make things easier on you and fast for both of us I am going to install this for you free of charge. please contact me"

This way he goes in and installes the mod. this keeps all the affected files kind of like hidden, so his mods are not passed around anymore.
The down side to this is his time is very limited and he is over loaded with installs.
I know my plate is full with all the clients and friends I do work for on here, expertzzz, and plus I have my own site of over 16k members... so I know how difficult THAT can be as well. PLUS... unless I know someone or trust them, I am not handing over my server information. So this is going to have to be someone high up in the ranks in order for me to release that info... because in order for someone to get that high, they have to be trusted ( thank you ratings and comments on products... TAKE MY ADVICE PEOPLE .. READ THEM!!!! THEY CAN SAVE YOU TIME AND MONEY!!!)

There are alot of options out there. Which one is the right one? I do not know

I guess I saw that everyone is using Unity and accepts that Boonex req. a license to run, so what is the difference for mods.

(This is at a VERY HIGH level) and yes of course a 1 or 2 line mod might not need to be encoded, but who knows it might.

I guess the big question here then is, Does everyone assume when they purchase a mod, they get source code ??

Cause that might change the prices, I know that the mods and Ajax ad-ons I am creating, if I have to give up my time and source, then I will charge more.

Encoding a file, DOES NOT change its way of installing, or ability to be installed by the buyer, etc.. everything is the same , just the source is not readable.

Simion, per your statement "" To make things easier on you and fast for both of us I am going to install this for you free of charge. please contact me" "

This would raise the issue for someone, not knowing what was done, and I see that as a bigger problem then a license, as that puts a ton of cooks in the kitchen if you get my drift.

As well, I for one as a programmer ,will NOT want to take the responsibility of installing mods on servers that I have no idea what else has been done.


I will have a BETA version available shortly, and I guess programmers that wish to use it, will.. those who dont, wont :-)

Hi Sammie,

Some good questions and thanks for the post.

In reply,

#1 i buy a mod that i use on one site and then close that site down and move my paid for mod to another site, i then have to contact someone to change things so it works?

Unfortunately that is a central question. The music industry and Hollywood peeps are tackling a similar problem. Locking the mod to the site is an option and not mandatory. It depends on the modder and to what extent they feel the value of their mod is worth. For example, if I produced a mod that could get your 1000 new sign ups an hour, it may be worth to add a mod that is protected. In some cases, some may be able to justify it. I think if the reason is compelling enough, it can make sense.

-----------------------------------------

#2 i have paid for 20 mods and 5 are from a person i later fall out with because they let me down over a service, so they disconnect my mods that they made to get revenge?

Nope. It doesn't work like that.

-----------------------------------------

#3 a modder makes a few mods and sells them, then moves onto something else, and quits dolphin, all my mods i got from him go poof with him.

At this time, that is the case with just about any software. In the past decade, I've purchased software and hardware that have gone nowhere. The same could be said with a bricks and mortar store. You buy a product and poof they go out of business. Ferdianand the duck has always said, "Well, the way things are sucks!” and I would assert this is one of those things that life serves us one in a while.

-----------------------------------------

#4 a call back to a server each page view is going to use a lot of bandwidth if you have a lot of mods right? or is this going to be something hosted at boonex so all mods are checked at one central location? poof boonex server goes down, so do all my mods.

It depends on the mod and modmaker. Consider too that the moment you are connected to anything, it can go offline at anytime.

-----------------------------------------

#5 better to not buy any mods that can fall under the above mentioned things. that way your mods and site would never be affected by anyone outside your own contol

The moment you are on the Internet you will be affected by *something* going down at one point like you ISP, you hosting company, RSS services and anything that requires a connection. For example, if you power went out now, then what?

-----------------------------------------


As previously alluded to in a post at the expertzzz.com forum, this is a possible interim solution and most likely will not apply to the one or two-liner mods.

I think free mods will always be available. For example, all the mods I have made to date have all been freely available.

However, I do have mods that have taken months to develop and to *me* can bring a lot of functional value to a site. Those ones I only install on my client sites and maybe one day will make it publicly available.

Ultimately, like anything else in life, you will have the freebies that do some good things and then you will have exceptional mods that will compell users/buyers to pay for it, as what it does is remarkable.

...sip...

Hmm, its an interesting situation going on here. Well, I think Simion is right - but yes once again as in Dadniel's case TIME is an issue.

And you cant even stop admiring and appreciating CyberXing and Jtadeo for agreeing on creating this encryption stuff - ATleast you guys are trying to work on and stop this theft thing !!! Well, dont guys but i think we need to have more input - as i see only 4 ppl have input here Simion, Jtadeo, CyberXing, Samiie ! We need to get everyone's say and I think some one from the core of Boonex too !

GOOD INITIAVITE GUYS ! =D

I personally do not like encrypted mods. Some mod developers tried this for Joomla mods. There products don’t sell very well and for many different reasons.

1. Even if you mod is only licensed for one domain name what if I want to have a couple different dev environments running at different times where I can have beta test users testing it from remote locations. Then there is the hassle of managing that whole licensing and if you all devs the it gets all nasty.

2. Next there is what if I want to mod your mod and tweak it the way I want it. Your code is now encrypted. What am I to do wait around for you to make a release that is custom tailored to meet my needs. Nope you’re a bottleneck to my biz then.

3. Next you need decryption software on the server side. Granted many hosting companies provide this but there are a lot of problems that can oocure with performance. Trust me we have seen them and many times it can affect your SEO efforts long story and to deep for me to explain. I am a big time performance and SEO guy that has over 100 sites online and can tell you encoding IS NOT the way to go. It solves one things and one thing only but creates a lot of problems in other places that are tuff to easily from a programmers perspective.

4. What if a new Dolphin upgrade comes out and the your module needs to be tweaked to make it work with new release. Do we all wait around for you? NO WAY! Not if I am running a real production members site.

Bottom line if I am going to invest my time and cash into an open source like plat form I am not going to want to close the code off to me. I personally would not but the module.

While sure we recently had a terrible thing happen where somebody did some crap with somebody else code. Deal with those issues one by one and create better ways to rate and trust both coders and buyers here online. The mod is worthless if they have nobody to sell it too.

Don’t make this whole community thing more complicated than it needs to be. I am here because it’s a form of open source. If that goes a way I and sure anyone with good business sense goes away too.

We would then just resort to having to create all of our own code.

Don’t get me wrong you mod guys need to be paid for you mods fairly and you also need to find ways to protect yourself.

Are you guys even failure with Google Beta labs http://labs.google.com and source code search http://www.google.com/codesearch
Code traps in your code so that when a bot indexed your code anyone that has either used it or stolen it can be identified quickly.

For example you have a central DB of licensing TO MATCH Domain names. A search query looks for domains using your code that are not authorized. You then address the deltas.

Zorro................

One more thing. When a mod becomes a bottleneck to my biz then they are no longer an asset to my biz it then becomes a liability to my biz.

Well if you able to this, i bet all the software companies around will look for you :)

CyberXing,

“Thanks for the response, and comments, but as well I think things are being dragged against all the negatives.”

I sort of see wanting to encode the code just because a couple people ran off with someone’s code the same way. You’re focusing on all the negatives. If I were mod developer my focus would be how I can increase the number of mods I can sell as well as adding to my mod collection.

Even Microsoft in the beginning new that their software would be copied reused and whatever else. But they also knew that the more exposure their software got the more honest paying sales they would obtain. Clearly that worked well for them as we all can see. This is a case of a few isolated incidents and people worrying about addressing pennies instead of how to make dollars.
What happens if you mod guy decide one day your building and selling your mods and the next day your nowhere to be found. Happens all the time. What does the CUSTOMER do then?

Don’t get me wrong. I think what was done was totally unethical. But I also think your addressing the problem in the wrong direction.

As far as saying that code does not have to be encoded 100%. Ok you’re right but what if the % of the code that is encoded happened to be the area YOUR CUSTOMERS want to modify for my custom needs. I may want to buy a mod that you have that fits 80% of my needs and then tweak the other 20%. I may also not want you and the world to know what that other 20% is due to proprietary differences to allow me to be different then all the other community sites so that I have a true competitive edge in the marketplace.

You may say you can hardly think Encoding will cause bottleneck I can tell you that I know it WILL just as sammie described above. Maybe not for a small site that gets 500 to 1000 visitors a day probably not a big deal. But for anyone that has ever built a larger site knows that every single request is overhead and it all adds up. We personally have experience at building, testing, and tuning sites that have had as much as 20K visitors a day in clustered environments.

By the way if somebody wants somebody’s code bad enough they will decode the encoding and yes that technology exists already. I have had developers that have worked for me tell me and show me that it does. The kind of person that would steal your code will have this ability anyway.
Where there is a will there is always a way. If you’re in the mod biz my advice is stay focused on the mod biz and how to build more and better mods and how to market them the best that you can to increase your total sales.

I will give you an example. We own and operate what we call lead generation sites and we spent nearly 6 years also developing an incredible lead engine that distributes leads to our clients all over the country within seconds of taking the lead. Many times these clients come up with bogus reasons why they don’t want the lead after it has already been sent to them. I have a guarantee that only one client gets the lead unlike other competitors of mine. At one point I spent a lot of effort developing system technology to try and identify fraud on their part to the point every time they changed something I then had to change on my end in an effort to combat what they done only so I could squeeze that extra profit that I was losing. It seemed to me only fair.

Then one day I said to myself. This is stupid. Just focus more on how to drive more volume of leads and accept the fact that there is always going to be a small percentage that I don’t get paid for. Like any retail store by the way.

Just how it is. When I took that approach my business began growing exponentially over the years and I was less stressed worrying about it. My accountant just finished my books for 07 and tells me we even grew by over 35% last year again.
Focus on volume. Old Sam you know the guy that started Walmart said the same thing. I actually got that idea from his book.

“I am sure that you are here because of Boonex Open Source products and not soley because of the mods.”

Yes you are right and so are most your potential customers. But I like many of your potential customers do need a lot of the mods that are here already and as soon as 6.1 is released I plan to start my new project with Dolphin after following this product for nearly a year and will need even more custom mods built. You have to remember Dolphin is the CORE. Mods are an extension of that core. Guess that is why Joomla calls them Extensions. Please don’t loose focus on the meaning of that word extension.

So I am not here to just grab an app snap it in a domain name sit back and think that traffic is suddenly going to find me. I don’t write very well but I can assure you that I am a professional web entrepreneur that has even been guest speaker at various internet conferences mostly around the topic of SEO and how to drive traffic to your site and have even been one of Google’s Fedex club guys. For those that don’t know what that is don’t worry about it:-) For those of you that are here that do know what it means then you know what I am talking about. I do know a lot of less experienced people come in here and talk about things they are just learning but I am not one of them. Been doing this for almost 7 years and my IT career as a whole is about 15 years.

“And with the argument of upgrades and such, it would be hardly the case of what was encoded would be what needs to be updated for an upgrade.”

You are assuming you know every possibility beforehand.

“Encoding the logic doesnt mean you need to hide configs, params, calls, etc.”

You’re assuming once again that I and others might not want to change some of the logic for their individual needs.

“It’s about allowing the programmer a way to get what he worked for.”

It’s also all about the CUSTOMER meaning the person that would buy your mod being satisfied. Don’t ever and I mean ever put yourself before your customer. When you do this you may have some short term gains but I can assure you that long term ones are never very good. Ask anyone that has been in biz long enough.

I do understand what you’re trying to accomplish and why you and other mod coders feel the way you do. But I think if look hard enough you can find other ways at solving this without hindering your CUSTOMERS.

And like I said check out the Open Source Joomla project at Joomla.org. They have thousands and thousands of extensions what you guys here are calling mods. 90% of them do not have encoding. There are a few that have choosing that path but honestly less people use those because of that reason.

In my company we utilize an array of different technologies for different sites as well as different parts of my systems and they range from everything from ASP.NET to PHP to ColdFusion, and some others.

The reason I even started messing with PHP apps was to get away from the compiling and all that mess that comes along with it. I know there are plenty of less experienced people that comment in these blogs that really don’t have the experience to know the details of what we are talking about. But I also know that there are some that do.

If you’re really that concerned about it then find another way. But again my focus and advice to you and other mod developers as I have learned the hard way would be to worry more about how to better market the mods so you could sell more and also focus on what next or what is better so YOUR CUSTOMERS have more choices.

Zorro...................

Well its too late for me and that is one hell of a long post.

I will say that Joomla extensions, components, and modules all are different and vary GREATLY from mods for Dolphin.

What Microsoft program are you assuming they ship source code too ??

But who am I, I just code.. thats all, little ole programmer me.

And I am sure you are GREAT at SEO, but thats not code, and I have written many programs for companies and generators that are sold on the internet and you can bet your hat, that they are 100% encoded, and people buy then everyday.

I cant compete with all the big names and all that, as again, I am just a lonely programmer.

Zorro,

I wont get into a pissing match with you, my comment regarding :

“But who am I, I just code.. thats all, little ole programmer me.”

was to lighten this up, I dont care about what you have done, or what you do, or any of that.

Congrats on being able to find that cyberxing is a new site, I do believe it has been said as the same.

Ohh .. is my Pundits ID suppose to match my Expertzzz and Unity and ... id's ??

Back up my claims ?? Dont need too

your welcome not to buy our services if you dont need them.

also Zorro,

I am not sure if you take my post in a negative, as it seems some do.

I created this Thread for that purpose, want to get input, and yours has been GREATLY noted.

You seem to be very strong in your area, and I have not attacked your creditability as you seem to try to do with me, this is not what the thread is about.

You have to admit you right some super long a$$ novel emails. And my eyes start to go crossed eyed before I get to the end.

I think you attacked your own credibility. You got to remember I as a buyer as well as others are your potential customers and if you want to encode your own mods that’s great have fun doing it. But when you came in here proposing your solution as a perfect end all solution for everyone that builds mods I and some others said hold on you need to know some of the pit falls before you run in that direction. But now instead of taking a little bit of extra effort and time to try and understand an experienced business person’s perspective you decide to say I don’t want to talk.

Honestly, this is why I really hope Dolphin Core Development Team soon creates and publishes a set of standards that not just developers that know and have experience already working with the Dolphin core but so any and all experienced developers can use to develop new enhancements to the core by any developer that can read and understand the standards while staying in compliance with the core’s roadmap. There is a great model that can be used right here http://dev.joomla.org/ without something like this the Dolphin project may very well reach a cap in the future with its customer base and not continue to grow.

The work that has been done by the core team is awesome in my opinion as I have said this many times before. I also want to see that continue to grow as I soon will have a vested interest when we jump start our new site.

A blog and a forum is designed so that we can freely and openly discuss things that are on topic. You opened up the topic. Now you don’t want to talk about it. Maybe you should have just opened the topic and said this is what I am going to do like it or not.

Like I said in my earlier post there are other ways to accomplish what you are trying to do without encoding all the code. Have you even spent the time to see how the Joomla developers are doing it? Or are you just taking the approach I know all and it’s my way or no way? Perhaps just going out on some of their boards and talking to a few people you may get the answer. Possibly come up with even a new idea that could be better for both the coder and the customer. Are you saying customers input and ideas are not important and your only interested in coding a module collecting your cash and moving on?

Ya you will find some people that have done this encoding process on the Joomla sites but most have not for the very reasons I and others have described above. But there are some coders that have found licensing solutions that have enabled them not to have to encode their code.

In the words of Tomas Edison. “There is always a better way just find it”

I would still be interested in seeing some of your previous mod work examples?

Please understand that I know you and other coder need to be paid fairly for your hard work and I don’t think its write for other people to steal your code. But what is needed is a process that works for both sides. Others wise it’s just a one sided approach.

Zorro……………………………………….

[wow, this thread is turning into a little booklet]

There are some excellent points being made in this thread.

Anyone else want to weigh in?

Lurkers, please chime in. Modders, programmers, developers and users want to know. It could affect how the next stage of dolphin add-ons and plug-ins are distributed and made.

I am sure there is an acceptable standard or methodology that will be churned out at some point that will make both modders and users happy to a degree.

Maybe looking at existing models with a similar problem framework might shed some light. As Zorro had mentioned, taking a chapter out of the Joomla playbook might be something we can learn from.

However, I am very interested in what users want to see. If you can chime in with:

a) a thumbs up indicating it's ok to protect some parts of the code

or

b) a thumbs down indicating it is something you do not want to see happen

You can put in your choice at the top right hand corner of this post anonymously if you choose.

This is not a new problem and not specific to Dolphin. Somehow, other OS apps have grown and continue to thrive. Simion mentioned that there may not be a good answer for this. At best it is nebulous if we consider that the music industry is experiencing the same thing.

Either way great thread. I am learning something.

Thanks everyone!

jtadeo,
Thank you very much for keeping an open mind about this as you are right this is a major decision that we need have even more input on.
I like what you said about taking a chapter out of the Joomla playbook. That project is much larger then Dolphin so why not learn from what they have done.

I agree we need to hear some more user feedback as well. I think part of the challenge is that many of them may not even understand what we are talking about. I am a very good verbal communicator but to be honest with you I kind of suck at writing. But you guys all know that already:- ) So maybe you can somehow write what we are talking about in simple terms. You’re clearly very good at that. Maybe something that shows the pros and cons and even possibly solicit ideas on how to deal with each.
You are absolutely right about it not being a new problem this is a debate all over the place. Just remember that the real thieves will always find a way to get around a lock. Just how it is and it’s why crime continues no matter what kind of locks you put in place. In my opinion the only person that suffers here at the end of the day with locks is the customer. There are even tons and ton of hack sites on the net that even create gen codes for software.

I have seen some Joomla mod builders basically have a site for support but the only way you get it is once you have purchased a license. Same for upgrades.

But I am sure like you there is an acceptable standard or methodology that we can all come up with that can keep everyone happy. If you want I can probably reference some modules I have used for Joomla and then check out how they licensed and secured the module.

One of the challenges we have with Dolphin right now is that whole set of programming standards and methodology practices we need like Joomla and other similar projects. I have heard a lot of people chattering about how to manage the escrow process and all of that between coders and buyers.
I will give you my opinion on this. I think we are heading in the wrong direction for this. I have a very close friend of mine Ian Ippolito we worked together back when I was in an IT director. He is now the creator and CEO of www.RentACoder.com his and other companies like Freelancer are the pro’s at handling the process of creating an environment that is fair for both coders and buyers of code. Boonex trust me you don’t want to get in the middle of all that. Focus on the core, provide standards and procedures and support for the core. Maintain a community for the rest but leave the coding deals for the sites like RAC.

I think while it’s ok to post ready made mods here sell just like Joomla does. But if you notice Joomla does not get involved in handling the transactions that is us to the individual coder. I think Boonex is loosing focus on what their core business is and taking on a whole lot more then they can even begin to understand as it relates to handling mediation, escrow, revisions of code, and all sorts of things. I discuss these kinds of challenges with Ian at RAC all the time. It’s a nightmare that has taken him years to perfect.

But without a set public standards and methodology path it’s kind of difficult to communicate to a development community what and how you want something done. I asked Ian of RAC if he could tell me how popular Dolphin was for bid requests in his company right now. He told me as of right then there were 242 open projects. So what I am saying is that it’s very popular. There is a lot going on outside of this community for Dolphin that this community has not idea what it is, By the way that is not a bad thing., Some of us in Biz don’t want our everyone knowing everything we are doing for competitive reasons.

With the right kind development standards and procedures it will more than likely become even more popular.

Dolphin community software cannot be all things to all people and neither can any software. But I think there is a hell lot of good work been done here to make a community core and now it is time to make it and keep it flexible and adaptable as I don’t want to see that direction begin to change. You begin to change a little here and then a little there the next thing you know it’s not an Open Source Community Project anymore and your back to shrink wrap software that everyone else has.

It’s kind of like when you make to many laws to protect things. Every time you make a new law you give up a little more of your liberty and before you know it you wonder where it went. Basically we do it to ourselves by only focusing on the negatives.


Zorro...........................................

I will leave it to James Thumbs..

Although I think this has gone way off track.

I do alot of work via RAC, and it works well, but I am also getting paid to release the source of what I do to the customer.

Also Zorro, Boonex isnt in the middle of the mods or selling or anything of the like, they just offer a place for people to post them and manage them. Thats all.

It was the development community that saw the issues of theft, and wanted to do something about it.

There is a big difference with someone hiring you to create a mod, and paying for , vs creating a mod and selling it to many people.



*NOTE: to all that have emailed me :-)
Thanks for all the input and support, I will have the 2nd beta up this weekend as well.

Zorro,

Its a two part process, and please understand, hacking out 10 lines of code to do a mod I am not concerned about protecting.

but a mod that takes weeks, months to do, and you want to be able to offer it to people at a reasonable price (hence selling it to multiple people) you need to protect it so that one person doesn't by it and then put it up for free to the rest.

I get request to build mods, and would tell someone if they want the source then it will cost the say 1,000.00 , but that same product, if I protect it, I can sell for 20.00 to many people.

There are a millions ways to do encoding and secure the source, and still allow for modifications.

CyberXing aka CyberXig hah

CyberXing,

You mentioned before you’re not concerned with all the code you certain parts of the code. You also are saying now that enough of the code would be open to be modified for what most people would want.
I do understand your challenges in the difference in the cost of building a mod vs selling a mod to the
masses. I really only have three concerns.

1. Will a coder be here today gone tomorrow.

2. Can I make at least minor adjustments to the code? Not just HTML

3. Will the impact of performance and bandwidth be very minimum?

So here are so possible ideas for these?

1. Have a central source safe for the code
for all mods sold with encryption without the encryption so in the event that you or other coders disappear never to heard from again we then have access to so our dependency of such mod is not a complete loss as we can hire somebody else to take it from there.

2. I am not a coder but I think this is an area if done properly can be done In such a way that the majority of code could be altered for additional custom needs. Especially if a coder does so with an open mind.

3. I also think that there are probably ways to if only a small amount of the code is encoded and done in such a way that every request does not need to go back and hit someone else’s server to authenticate as real. I Think the way some of the Joomla mods work is they make the initial authentication during licensing stage and then they are done. However, I still know that if an app is completely encoded every time a request is needed the decoder is applied first so there is a certain amount of overhead that hit the servers. Not a big deal on a small startup site. But becomes more of a big deal as a site grows. So somehow there needs to be a way that only certain parts of the code is encoded relieving as much performance hit as possible as well as allowing a lot of flexibility for people that may want to tweak some things. The only way that I see how you’re going to accomplish this across multiple mod coders is to somehow create a universal standard on the parts that should have should not be encoded on a give mod if that is possible.

In addition, Why not go ahead and offer the source for sale for a customer that has the need for slight increase over the encoded version. Not the full cost of a complete mod build. Or if you don’t feel comfortable with that then offer the source the same way I described but only to customers that have been your customer for a period of time. That way you know exactly who has your source or not.
I know in the content biz they many times hide a piece of content in different places so they can identify their content later if someone is using it unauthorized.

personally would prefer to still not see anything encoded but I also understand your challenges a coder trying to make a buck for your hard work. And even if the process the ideas I have recommended up top they should be for the larger mods only as you describe.

Zorro………………………..

Zorro,

The coder being around is always a question, I mean companies come and go in mins and hours. So this is just the trust you have to put in the product you are buying.

What ever the developer wants you to be able to change you can change, this is all controlled by the developer and is up to them.

There is no impact on performance or bandwidth.

Comments to your suggestions:

1. Most programmers use a CV (Code Vault) system or SVN as we call it. Its possible to create a community of developers and have them work collectively on the source but then it changes the whole scheme of payment etc.

And to be honest I dont see many programmers joining. They couldnt get this done got Joomla either.

2. Well that is the basis of open source, but 9 out of 10 times , it does not include mods. (hacks yes, but not mods)

3. Your concerns about overhead are not an issue, the size of the site and number of users plays into nothing.

I will leave what and how the encoding is done upto the developer that is encoding it.

I am only providing the ability for them to do so, in a secure, and fast manner.

Its beer thirty!!
CyberXing

Wow, I doubt anyone will get down to my small comment on this HUGE post.. we are really going to extremes to prevent ONE person from stealing our mods. Has anyone else besides "CodyT" really sold stolen mods? I think it would be WAY easyer for Boonex to just stay on top of the "downloadz" section and delete him when he rears his ugly head. I can speak from experience installing the "ray" suite that the "call home" is a PAIN and is very delicate.. It is too easily broken by moving things on the server or the home server being down.. then again I'm no expert.. just an expertzzz, haha.

encoding DOESNT require a "call home"