How to protect your plugins code

[tlnguyen]

hello everybody,
our team has developed a Sketchup ruby plugin and we now want to "lend" it to a partner. So is there a way to protect our ruby code? and is there a way to remotely control its use?

thank you very much,
regards,

tlnguyen

[pilou]

https://developers.google.com/sketchup/docs/tutorial_distributing ?

[Dan Rathbun]

You can scramble them:

SketchUp Ruby Script Scrambler

Beware:

1) The global functions FILE and LINE cannot be used within files that you will later scramble into RBS.
The Sketchup.load() and Sketchup.require() methods have internal errors in their decryption code, that do not translate the filepath and line.

2) If you use SketchupExtension class plugin registration, this class cannot call a rbs file directly. It must call an unscrambled rb file ("the loader file") that has nothing but, one or more, Sketchup.require("myfile") calls in it.

[TIG]

I am not inferring that you are doing anything 'wrong'...
But 'remotely controlling' a tool with encrypted-code seems to be too much like malware/adware/trojanware/virusware/etc...
I certainly wouldn't want to load a .rbs file from an 'untrusted' source, and if I found I was using one that was 'doing things behind my back without my permission', then I would certainly not trust it any longer !
Imagine the havoc such a tool could wreak on someone else's PC in the wrong hands...

[Dan Rathbun]

@tlnguyen said:

So is there a way to protect our ruby code? and is there a way to remotely control its use?

Do you mean license management ?

"Control it's use"... in what way(s) ??