> Completely agreed. On the ROM MUD I work on as head coder, there are certain
> trusted coders that have full access, and that number is kept small (about
> 4). There
> are other coders that we send files to, they modify, we re-integrate. This
> allows us
> to get the best of both worlds.
>
> My eventual plan with my CircleMUD always has been to release the last complete
> version. Ie, when I get it to "version 1" of where I want it, I release
> nothing. When I
> get it to "version 2", I'll release version 1... it will probably have bugs
> that I have fixed,
> it doesn't have all the features, and internal workings of it have probably
> changed, etc.
>
> This way I am contributing a bit back, but no way in hell would I give out
> the copy that
> I'm actually serving people.
So, how can you protect your mud from your own programmers?
I was thinking about this problem for a while, and I realized that
there was a sort of convuluted way to protect your code. See, if someone
has access to your code, they can, no matter what you put in it,
eventually download it, and run it as theirs. Sure, they may have to take
out alot of platform/machine specific options, but eventually it will
work. You can't simply just crypt your files either; if they're going to
have to edit them....
So, find all the functions you can that you're not going to change
on a regular basis. Especially large ones, like some of the background
OLC stuff, or dgscript/mobprog engines, and the sort. Throw them into a
set of files, and to each add a check that verifies ... i dunno.. if the
machine id num (uname -i on some machines) is the same. Something
specific to your machine..ip address may be good enough. In anycase, put
that common function in all of them.
Then figure out how to use the 'ar' command to turn those object
files into a library. THEN crypt those files and lock them away. Hide
them. Offline preferably. Even if they have a similar OS, the validation
function breaks the mud. Heck, you could even be really nasty and have it
delete parts (or assumed parts) of the source code, etc.... doesn't nearly
everyone have their dir structure with
/bin
/src
/lib ?
Anyway, sounds good less i hear something different?
PjD
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