Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} Deliberately obfuscating my code

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

Apparently, though unproven, at 07:56 on Tuesday 09 November 2010, Grant did 
opine thusly:

> >> This is OT, but you guys have proven extremely insightful over the
> >> years and I would love to hear what you think.
> >> 
> >> I've been working on a particular software project for a long time.
> >> I'd like to hire a team of developers to take over the project, but I
> >> consider the code to be valuable and I'd like to keep the whole of it
> >> secure, even from my own developers.  I was thinking I could do this
> >> by using some technique to obfuscate the true intention of the code
> >> modules.  Maybe a recorded series of search/replaces for variable
> >> names which are reversed once code editing is complete?  Has any
> >> software been made available to aid in an endeavor like this?
> > 
> > Not an answer to your question but how are those developers going to
> > work on your software if you obfuscate it first? Seems very counter
> > productive. Not to mention that it seems like a perfect way to
> > introduce bugs in your code base.
> 
> The internal function of each code module wouldn't be obfuscated of
> course, but the variable names and similar could be.  The idea is that
> I would define a specific spec to which each module of code is
> written.  This is very uncharted territory for me.  Is this something
> that just isn't done?  Does everyone just hope each of their
> developers are honest people?

Your average developer will look at that and say to himself

"Fuck that. I'm going somewhere else".

20 year olds might not. They don't have the experience to judge.

> > Wouldn't it be much simpler to have your developers sign an NDA? In
> > general, I would not worry too much about your idea being stolen, it's
> > the implementation that makes it worth something. And implementing an
> > idea takes a lot of hard work.
> 
> The idea is nothing special, you're right, it's the implementation,
> and the software is the implementation in this case so I need to
> protect it.

Protect it from what? From people you hired?

Simpler to change your hiring policies.

Look, you gotta trust someone in this world. As a boss, like every other boss 
out there, you gotta trust your staff.

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com