Ask HN: Best way(s) to distribute a self-hosted, non-compiled product

[jnankin]

Say you have a product written in Ruby, Python, PHP etc. and you would like to distribute it as a self-hosted solution.

What are the best ways to go about doing this without having to worry about people ripping off your code?

I assume answers will fall into some of the following categories:

- compile/obfuscate code (i.e. cpython)

- submit product as a virtual image (like github enterprise)

- just don't care and rely on your bundled licenses

Each has their own up/down sides. Discuss. :)

[firstprimate]

I am going with the last option. Rely on bundled licenses. Seeing as I also provide a fully managed service, I include all software updates etc. for those who pay the annual license.

The rest are not my customers and worrying about them is a distraction.

[sdrinf]

There was a pretty dense discussion on the first option at Stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5069791/challenge-maximiz...

The most viable target market for self-hosted products are still entreprises ; deployment via virtual images might be the most feasable solution for all parties involved.

Second-best option, specifically for eg. PHP, might be compiling the code into executables (via eg. https://github.com/facebook/hiphop-php ), and distributing distro-specific executables.

Re: 3rd option, the specific worry about distributing code in any form isn't piracy (as pointed out by firstprimate, those aren't your customers); rather, blatant ripoffs engaging in marketing-only competition using a rebranded version of your own product.

[rotnewson]

The github way is pretty good because most businesses use some sort of virtualization (usually vmware) once they become a certain size.

But really it depends on who you are selling to and what you are selling, some companies just have the customer pay for a server and then the company ships it out with a guy to install it (better for small businesses that don't have dedicated sysadmins).

[gesman]

http://zencrypt.com for PHP obfuscation. It's not NSA-grade encryption - but it works for 99.9% hosting accounts without need for specialized libraries.

It obfuscates your code well.

[wmf]

People don't buy software any more anyway; they only buy cloud services.

[jnankin]

I can tell you for a fact that this is not true when you're dealing with enterprises or software that is vital for the operation of your business. These types of customers demand to have products hosted internally.