license and protect php script

Question

I am interested to use http://www.phplicengine.com to protect my php code and license my php script but have no clue how good it is. is here a PHPLicengine user who may help me please?

Answer 1

Protecting your PHP code is useless, unless you make your script open source. If your PHP code is not open source, it will be invisible for users of your website. Only the output of it will be available to anyone. By the way, why would you license something not available for others?

Answer 2

PHP code cannot be encrypted because at some point you have to eval() the string that will be producing the output.So there isn't a way to actually keep people from stealing your code if you let it get off your servers.

For the most part, trying to protect the code is useless. People make money off of code by either A) Working for someone, B) Providing updates/support to only valid paying customers, or C) Somehow make the data the software uses go through their own servers to get to the client.

Any other attempt to protect the code requires legal counsel and action.

Answer 3

You can compile php code. It is not a simple process though. Take a look at Bcompiler or byte compiler on the php.net site.

http://us.php.net/manual/en/intro.bcompiler.php

Answer 4

I've never heard of PHPLicengine - for encryption/protection, I normally rely on either Zend Guard or ionCube. I've also heard good things about PHPAudit.

However, whilst these (especially Zend) are all "big names" in the PHP script protection business, they cannot protect your script against really serious crackers (I know both Zend and IonCube have been broken before: however, this was several versions ago and the resulting output was obfuscated anyway as both systems, for speed, reduced variables/function names to minimal length and removed comments).

Answer 5

By itself, a system like PHPLicengine is useless. Your PHP script will still be a plain text PHP script, so someone can just strip the license code out (it'll take 1/10th as long as it took you to integrate), and do whatever they like with it.

PHP script encoders (like IonCube, Zend Encoder) have the ability to pre-compile PHP scripts into bytecode. They require the web server to have a PHP extension to decode and run the compiled scripts.

They basically do the same thing as obfuscators in Java / .NET - create an obfuscated binary version that still runs, but is more difficult to decompile or modify.

There are problems with this approach - not all web hosts have the appropriate PHP extension installed, and each script encoder needs it's own. Even those that do will typically have only one (IonCube and Zend are the most common). Typically, your customers won't be able to install the appropriate PHP extension, since they don't own or control their web server, so only having an obfuscated version available might prevent some customers from using (and therefore buying) your software.

Judging from the FAQs on the PHPLicengine website, the licensing portions of their license system are encoding using IonCube anyway, so that pretty much forces you into using IonCube.

Answer 6

I use POBS link text open source.

I like it because it only touches what needs to be protected. Give it a try and let me know what you think.