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obviscating python code for distribution

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  obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 20:04 -0600
    Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-16 13:29 +1000
      Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 21:36 -0600
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-05-15 22:48 -0500
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-16 04:03 +0000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 14:40 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-15 23:41 -0600
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2011-05-16 08:49 +0000
              Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 19:10 +1000
              Re: obviscating python code for distribution harrismh777 <harrismh777@charter.net> - 2011-05-16 14:40 -0500
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution Nobody <nobody@nowhere.com> - 2011-05-16 13:05 +0100
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution James Mills <prologic@shortcircuit.net.au> - 2011-05-16 16:00 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 16:12 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 00:17 -0600
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 00:20 -0600
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:22 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution James Mills <prologic@shortcircuit.net.au> - 2011-05-16 16:24 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution geremy condra <debatem1@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 00:27 -0700
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Jean-Michel Pichavant <jeanmichel@sequans.com> - 2011-05-16 11:36 +0200
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> - 2011-05-16 08:44 -0600
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:30 +1000
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution alex23 <wuwei23@gmail.com> - 2011-05-16 20:45 -0700
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Dotan Cohen <dotancohen@gmail.com> - 2011-05-17 09:16 +0300
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2011-05-17 16:39 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" <darcy@druid.net> - 2011-05-17 09:36 -0400
        Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-16 14:10 +1000
          Re: obviscating python code for distribution Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2011-05-16 13:52 +0000
            Re: obviscating python code for distribution Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2011-05-17 10:27 +1000
      Re: obviscating python code for distribution Disc Magnet <discmagnet@gmail.com> - 2011-05-20 14:49 +0530

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#5541

"Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> writes:

> Anyway, thanks to everyone else who answered this thread. I've not
> done much like this besides muds, and all the logic is on the server
> there, I think I will build the client in python, open source it for
> people to fix/add to if they want and make sure to keep the server as
> secure as it can be.

Sounds like a good approach to me that doesn't treat users as
necessarily hostile.

I wish you good fortune in building a strong community around the game
so that it can defend itself from cheaters, and a free-software client
will IMO promote exactly that.

-- 
 \           “I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I |
  `\        consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no |
_o__)  superhuman authority behind it.” —Albert Einstein, letter, 1953 |
Ben Finney

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#5547

"Littlefield, Tyler" <ty...@tysdomain.com> wrote:
> Anyway, thanks to everyone else who answered this thread. I've not done
> much like this besides muds, and all the logic is on the server there, I
> think I will build the client in python, open source it for people to
> fix/add to if they want and make sure to keep the server as secure as it
> can be.

The browser-based game Lacuna Expanse actually open sources the Perl
client for their game, it might be a good place for ideas on how to
approach this: https://github.com/plainblack/Lacuna-Web-Client

The MMO EVE uses Stackless Python for both the client & server. Here's
a slightly older doc detailing their architecture:
http://www.slideshare.net/Arbow/stackless-python-in-eve

Hope this helps.

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#5552

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 07:40, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
> And I'm sure Steven will agree with me that this is not in any way a
> bad thing. I've written hundreds of such programs myself (possibly
> thousands), and they have all served their purposes. On a slightly
> larger scale, there are even more programs that have never left the
> walls of my house, having been written for my own family - not because
> I'm afraid someone else will steal them, but because they simply are
> of no value to anyone else. But hey, if anyone wants a copy of my code
> that's basically glue between [obscure application #1] and [obscure
> application #2] that does [obscure translation] as well to save a
> human from having to do it afterwards, sure! You're welcome to it! :)
>
> However, I do not GPL my code; I prefer some of the other licenses
> (such as CC-BY-SA), unless I'm working on a huge project that's not
> meant to have separate authors. For something that by and large is one
> person's work, I think it's appropriate to give attribution. But
> discussion of exactly _which_ open source license to use is a can of
> worms that's unlikely to be worth opening at this stage.
>

Actually, Chris, those applications are probably no less valuable to
be open source than Linux or Firefox. The reason is that when one goes
to learn a new language it is valuable to look at existing real world
code. However, the code available online generally falls into one of
two categories:
1) Simple sample code, which demonstrates a principle or technique
2) Full-blown FOSS application with hundreds of source files and a build

It sounds to me like your home-brew code might be one of the missing
links between the two. It won't be so tiny as to be trivial, but it
won't be so huge as to be beyond the grasp of novices.

I for one would love to look over such code. I'll learn something,
without a doubt. Maybe someone might even spot a bug or make a
suggestion to improve it. And almost invariably, any problem that I've
ever had someone has had first. So while you might have been one of
the first have a need to interface FooWidget with PlasmoidBar, someone
after you will in fact need just the code to do that.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com

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#5553

On Tue, May 17, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, Chris, those applications are probably no less valuable to
> be open source than Linux or Firefox. The reason is that when one goes
> to learn a new language it is valuable to look at existing real world
> code. However, the code available online generally falls into one of
> two categories:
> 1) Simple sample code, which demonstrates a principle or technique
> 2) Full-blown FOSS application with hundreds of source files and a build
>
> It sounds to me like your home-brew code might be one of the missing
> links between the two. It won't be so tiny as to be trivial, but it
> won't be so huge as to be beyond the grasp of novices.

You have a point there. Although I can't guarantee that all my code is
particularly *good*, certainly not what I'd want to hold up for a
novice to learn from - partly because it dates back anywhere up to two
decades, and partly because quite a few of the things I was working
with are completely undocumented!

But if you have Pastel Accounting Version 5, running in a Windows 3.1
virtual session, and you want to export some of its data to a DB2
database, I can help you quite a bit. Assuming you have an OS/2 system
to run it on, of course. (You see what I mean about obscure?) I should
probably dust off some of the slightly-more-useful pieces and put them
up on either The Esstu Pack (my old web site) or rosuav.com (my new
web site, doesn't have any better name than that), but that kinda
requires time, a resource that I don't have an awful lot of. I'm sure
there'll be a few oddments in there where at least one half of the
glue is more useful. Back then, though, I didn't know Python, nor
Pike, nor any of quite a few other awesome languages, but REXX and C++
are at least available open source.

Chris Angelico

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#5564

On Tue, 17 May 2011 16:39:48 +1000
Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
> You have a point there. Although I can't guarantee that all my code is
> particularly *good*, certainly not what I'd want to hold up for a
> novice to learn from - partly because it dates back anywhere up to two
> decades, and partly because quite a few of the things I was working
> with are completely undocumented!

Sounds like a perfect reason to open source it.  If what you say is
true it could benefit you more than others, at least at the beginning.
Remember, open source is a two way street.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net>         |  Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/                |  and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212     (DoD#0082)    (eNTP)   |  what's for dinner.

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#5475

"Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> writes:

> I'm putting lots of work into this. I would rather not have some
> script kiddy dig through it, yank out chunks and do whatever he wants.
> I just want to distribute the program as-is, not distribute it and
> leave it open to being hacked.

How do these arguments apply to your code base when they don't apply to,
say, LibreOffice or Linux or Python or Apache or Firefox?

How is your code base going to be harmed by having the source code
available to recipients, when that demonstrably doesn't harm countless
other code bases out there?

-- 
 \           “Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in |
  `\                                      these.” —Ovid (43 BCE–18 CE) |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney

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#5517

On 2011-05-16, Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> writes:
>
>> I'm putting lots of work into this. I would rather not have some
>> script kiddy dig through it, yank out chunks and do whatever he wants.
>> I just want to distribute the program as-is, not distribute it and
>> leave it open to being hacked.
>
> How do these arguments apply to your code base when they don't apply to,
> say, LibreOffice or Linux or Python or Apache or Firefox?

One obvious way that those arguments don't apply is that the OP didn't
put lots of work into LibreOffice, Linux, Python, Apache or Firefox
and therefore doesn't have any right to control their distribution.

> How is your code base going to be harmed by having the source code
> available to recipients, when that demonstrably doesn't harm
> countless other code bases out there?

The owner of something is free to determine how it is distributed --
he doesn't have any obligation to prove to you that some particular
method of distribution is harmful to him or anybody else.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow!
                                  at               BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-BI-
                              gmail.com            

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#5540

Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:

> On 2011-05-16, Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> > "Littlefield, Tyler" <tyler@tysdomain.com> writes:
> >
> >> I'm putting lots of work into this. I would rather not have some
> >> script kiddy dig through it, yank out chunks and do whatever he
> >> wants. I just want to distribute the program as-is, not distribute
> >> it and leave it open to being hacked.
> >
> > How do these arguments apply to your code base when they don't apply
> > to, say, LibreOffice or Linux or Python or Apache or Firefox?
>
> One obvious way that those arguments don't apply is that the OP didn't
> put lots of work into LibreOffice, Linux, Python, Apache or Firefox

Yet the copyright holders *did* put lots of effort into those works
respectively. So the arguments would apply equally well; which is to
say, they don't.

> > How is your code base going to be harmed by having the source code
> > available to recipients, when that demonstrably doesn't harm
> > countless other code bases out there?
>
> The owner of something is free to determine how it is distributed --
> he doesn't have any obligation to prove to you that some particular
> method of distribution is harmful to him or anybody else.

Note that I didn't say anything about obligation or harm to persons. I
asked only about the code base and the distribution thereof.

In the meantime, Tyler has come back to us with arguments that *do*
differentiate between the above cases and his own. So thanks, Tyler, for
answering the questions.

-- 
 \        “Of course, everybody says they're for peace. Hitler was for |
  `\      peace. Everybody is for peace. The question is: what kind of |
_o__)                                peace?” —Noam Chomsky, 1984-05-14 |
Ben Finney

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#5844

On Mon, May 16, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Littlefield, Tyler <tyler@tysdomain.com> wrote:
> I'm putting lots of work into this. I would rather not have some script
> kiddy dig through it, yank out chunks and do whatever he wants. I just want
> to distribute the program as-is, not distribute it and leave it open to
> being hacked.

Obfuscating the code won't help here. Remember, "the enemy knows the system."

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