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I have a php project that i want to sell. The buyer wants his programmer to see the quality of the code first, before it makes the purchase.

I don't want him to be able to copy the code so i have to protect it.

How would you protect your code from being copied? PDF? FTP Flash Viewer browser? Something?

P.S. if it is of any importance, the programer doesn't need to run the code, he just needs to be able to take a look at it.

JasonMArcher
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Timur
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    Send him only part of the files, not all of them. Otherwise, it can't be reliably done – Vlad Preda Jan 28 '13 at 13:58
  • If the program worths, even in video format, i'l write by hand frame to frame. No way you can stop it. Best you can do is give him half the code. Rest, after buying. The chicken is cooked or not, you can make an assestment by a piece. You don't need to eat the whole chicken to know it. – itachi Jan 28 '13 at 13:59
  • you can't. also why would the programmer not want to run it, he cannot possibly verify that the code does what is expected by simply laying eyes on it. – vikki Jan 28 '13 at 14:00
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    He can't verify that the code does what it is expected to do, but he can verify the quality of the code... but you could offer to give him the results of phpmd, phpcodesniffer, etc static analysis tools – Mark Baker Jan 28 '13 at 14:10
  • he doesnt need to run it, because he can see the frontend - it's a webpage. statistic analysis won't be sufficient. i guess i dont have much choice other than showing only a part of code. – Timur Jan 28 '13 at 14:22

3 Answers3

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If you are providing the source code, there isn't much that can be done to stop somebody copying it. Even if you sent it to them as a screen shot, they could merely retype it.

The best thing you can do is give them a small excerpt of your code, that doesn't do much by itself, but demonstrates the quality of your coding ability.

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Does he has to see all code? or just some files? In that case you may want to make some pictures. You can convert PDF files to text files so that is not a good option. Flash could be something to.

But I think the best way is to show the code by your self to the programmer

Perry
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  • pictures are good idea, maybe even with some pattern as background to avoid ocr. unfortunately i cant show it on my desktop, because we are not in the same city. – Timur Jan 28 '13 at 13:59
  • this is assuming that the other guy doesn't have a functioning keyboard. ocr or not if the other guy is out to steal your code he will type it out from the images. – vikki Jan 28 '13 at 14:02
  • @vikki showing your code is always a problem. So if use a picture you can type the code from the picture of course. The best way is to show the code in personal but as he said, he can't do that so a picture of something like flash can make it something harder to copy it. – Perry Jan 28 '13 at 14:07
  • Perry its mostly a relationship issue here. If you're going to showcase only a small bit of harmless code why take the preventive measures. just give a plain text version. Think about it, ocr is very easy to do, the only way to avoid it would be to use hard to read text like Captcha, and do you really want to display your code in that format? – vikki Jan 28 '13 at 14:34
  • @vikka yeah i guess i'll have to go with "show some part of the code" strategy... – Timur Jan 28 '13 at 14:41
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PDF of photos of the code would be a good choice, with many editors you have the option to print to file.

But anyway... if he can read it, he can copy it. I suggest you include on the top of every file a copyright declaration, this will give you certain legal protection.

rodripf
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  • ok, i just thought maybe there is some way like making exe file and displaying text with some pattern over it for ocr protection or something... – Timur Jan 28 '13 at 14:28