# Encrypting source / application licensing **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [March 21, 2006, 7:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/encrypting-source-application-licensing/55456 "2006-03-21T07:49:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/janovetz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/encrypting-source-application-licensing/55456/1 "2006-03-21T07:49:01Z")
Hey folks- If I wanted to distribute my code to users that would run the code on their own machine, how could I go about encrypting the source to run on a user’s machine? PHP has the Zend Encoder among others, I believe. Is there anything similar for Ruby? Jake ---
**Author:** ![janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/janovetz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/encrypting-source-application-licensing/55456/2 "2006-03-21T12:59:11Z")
Jake J. wrote: > Hey folks- > > If I wanted to distribute my code to users that would run the code on > their own machine, how could I go about encrypting the source to run on > a user’s machine? > > PHP has the Zend Encoder among others, I believe. Is there anything > similar for Ruby? > Not yet. Expect that to happen soon after Ruby 2.0 gets released (I > don’t know of any specific projects, but there’s a market force and the > architecture should allow it). The current Ruby interpreter doesn’t do > a bytecode compilation, so there’s no intermediate to save. ---
**Author:** ![janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/janovetz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/encrypting-source-application-licensing/55456/3 "2006-03-21T18:39:51Z")
Alex Y. wrote: > Jake J. wrote: > > > Hey folks- > > > > If I wanted to distribute my code to users that would run the code on > > their own machine, how could I go about encrypting the source to run on > > a user’s machine? > > > > PHP has the Zend Encoder among others, I believe. Is there anything > > similar for Ruby? > > Not yet. Expect that to happen soon after Ruby 2.0 gets released (I > > don’t know of any specific projects, but there’s a market force and the > > architecture should allow it). The current Ruby interpreter doesn’t do > > a bytecode compilation, so there’s no intermediate to save. Great. Thanks. I remembered reading about a bytecode implementation but I wasn’t entirely sure how that would fit in. It seems that some folks have been able to reverse the Zend Encode stuff. Is that a bytecode implementation or some other form of decrypt-before-interpret thing? Jake ---
**Author:** ![janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/janovetz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/encrypting-source-application-licensing/55456/4 "2006-03-21T18:46:42Z")
Not to make light of what you’re trying to do, but most commercial Java applications (including the one that pays for my salary) are trival to reverse engineer and no one worries about it much. The various solutions are limited and bring their own headaches. Are you sure you need to hide your code? ---
**Author:** ![janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/janovetz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/encrypting-source-application-licensing/55456/5 "2006-03-21T18:52:58Z")
Jake J. wrote: > It seems that some folks have been able to reverse the Zend Encode > stuff. Is that a bytecode implementation or some other form of > decrypt-before-interpret thing? > Looks like bytecode to me, although I haven’t played with it myself. ---
**Author:** ![janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/53a042/32.png) [@janovetz](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/janovetz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 6:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/encrypting-source-application-licensing/55456/6 "2006-03-21T18:53:36Z")
Larry W. wrote: > Not to make light of what you’re trying to do, but most commercial Java > applications (including the one that pays for my salary) are trival to > reverse engineer and no one worries about it much. The various > solutions > are limited and bring their own headaches. > > Are you sure you need to hide your code? Locks on a house, I guess. You get rid of a lot of folks just by having some mild deterrant. How does the Google Appliance protect their source? Or the Joyent Connector?