On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 07:51:23PM +0000, Jon Harrop wrote:
> On Monday 07 January 2008 15:54:45 Alain Frisch wrote:
> > 1. Distribute the source code, even without an open source license. I
> > cannot imagine this would reduce your sales, but you know better.
> 
> Yes. The concern here is not loss of sales but loss of competitive edge. With 
> direct access to a comprehensible implementation of the complex algorithms 
> inside the software, people will nick the algorithms even if they don't nick 
> the source code. After 9 years of work, I'd rather not see that happen... :-)

Really?  Do you think that the generated bytecode is obscure enough to
protect this 'valuable' knowledge too?  If I was that concerned about
my cherished algorithms, I wouldn't let them go beyond a web service.

> > 3. Obfuscate the parts of the source code you want to keep secret.
> > Camlp4 might help here.
> 
> This is a possibility but there is little scope for obfuscation within OCaml, 
> AFAIK. I really want to distribute after pattern match compilation, for 
> example.

Check out this recent discussion on ocaml_beginners:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners/message/9163

> I'd be very happy if the brittle digest comparison were replaced with a 
> structural API comparison instead. That would save me a lot of time and 
> effort.

This is certainly true.  The single, brittle digest is a real problem
for Red Hat.  It should be at least possible to add additional values
and types without that causing incompatibility.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones
Red Hat