[wp-hackers] Premium plugin protection

[Brian Layman]

On 12/11/2010 6:36 PM, scribu wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 1:14 AM, Andy Charrington-Wilden<
> andycharrington at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Does anyone have any thoughts on the best and most appropriate way to
>> protect (as much as possible) a premium plugin from hacking and
>> redistribution? I have considered a check with a remote server to verify
>> membership/payment etc but what's to stop a half decent developer just
>> removing those checks? Obfuscation?
>>
>> Any help or advice is massively appreciated!
>>
> Don't sell code, sell support around the code. Simple as that (or not).
>
Agreed.  If it works for BackupBuddy, Gravity Forms and Shopp, it is a 
proven approach.

But if in the end you do go with obfuscation, don't use ZendGuard 
because it will eliminate all servers that want to use an APC opcode 
cache.  Choose something like IONCube if you feel you have to go that 
route.  If you use WHM, you could also look into how WHMCS's licensing 
solution works. It is inexpensive and provides the selling solution for it.

-Brian.