[prog] 'protecting' perl code

[Riccarda Cassini]

Hi everyone,                                                                
                                           
                                                                            
                                           
first, I'd like to mention that my java project that I recently needed
help with is currently in a state which would allow me to stop working
on it for a while.  My client seems to have no further change requests
at the moment.  Actually, he is rather pleased with the application's
final appearance, so I'd like to pass on the praise to those of you who
deserve it at least as much as I do...

This is not the primary reason I'm posting, though.  Thing is, I might
in fact get a chance to take on another project - if I should somehow
figure out how to solve the task at hand.  The new project would
involve perl - which is rather enticing for me, as I always wanted to
dive a little deeper into the intricacies of perl programming...

I guess the problem at hand is a little unusual:  I've been asked
whether it would be possible to 'protect' existing perl scripts from
prying eyes - such that you can give them away to people who are not
supposed to see what the code does...  Comparable to having some
compiled binary executable, that you can't easily reverse engineer.
Interesting question, I thought :-)  but as you can imagine, I wasn't
yet able to give my client any substantial info on the subject...

I gooled a bit, but all I found were a few commercial solutions (source
code obfuscators like Perlguardian, Perl-obfus, etc.), and rather
heated discussions about why you should never ever do such a thing at
all, as it would be a breach of the open source philosophy, ethically.

Well, I'm afraid this is a little over my head anyway - at least I'd
probably have to learn a couple of things along the way...
Still, does anyone have any ideas how one could go about it?  I'd hate
to give up before having had a go at it.  I've come across mentions of
the perl compiler (B::*, or so) in that context. Would that be the way
to go?

Is this doable at all within a reasonable project time span, or should
I rather tell my client to use some commercial solution right away?

Any suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance,

Riccarda



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