I agree with Doug on this one.(wait! Did I said that? I am actually agreeing with Doug for once! Look at that! Must be a special day!). But I digress.

I do agree that the thieves and pirates and a business culture that does not prevent that from happenning but actually encourages it, are to blame. Else they would not have customers eager to buy the stolen software.

You can make it difficult to steal your source code but never impossible. A determined thief will find a way, with or without Refox.

For starters, brand your forms and reports with your company name and "Sold to: XYZ". A potential customer will think before buying software that prominently says it was stolen and would not be interested in having reports of their data with somebody else's name. Make them have to call you (or dial you web server) upon first installation for a key or some other password.

Like I said, these and other measures will not stop iut but will make it more difficult to steal.



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>>As far as I know and what I have seen for Refox, it can give source code from our compiled object code. i.e. .prg from .fxp (say for FoxPro dos)
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>>So i believe its not the matter of whether to include source or not. These third party tools are specialised to give source from compiled files. Try.
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>Well, you can protect your source code by using Refox but that will never stop the determined individual. A lot of folks will have an agreement for the source code to be kept in a location that is accessable by a lawyer in case of, say, the death of the developer.
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>>Ofcourse these tools are very helpful incase we loose our own source.
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>Yes! On more than one occasion I have been rescued by Refox. It's very much worth the money to purchase in my opinion.
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>>How to protect source code from these?
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>Look, the problem isn't with the source code. It's with the criminals who steal source code from other developers. They are nothing more than lousy rotten theives. What is wrong is the culture that either encourages this or looks the other way when it happens. Here in the States we have lawyers who will protect our intellectual property - but (sadly) usually only when there's enough $$ for them to make as a result. I understand that theft of software is particularly bad overseas. Unless and until people reach a point where they do not want to steal - they will steal.
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