[wp-hackers] Premium plugin protection

[Ken (WraithKenny)]

The Studio I work for has purchased GPL plugins.

We can redistribute the code... but we don't. We can even get the
plugins for free somewhere else... but we don't.

We paid the fee for the easy updates and support, plain and simple.
And we don't distribute because we don't want to offer support for
them ourselves.

Just in case you wanted a customer point of view. The business that
sell these plugins do so from a server that requires an API key, but
that's more along the lines of Locks on doors keep honest people
honest. Their terms (which we found important) are for the easy
auto-updates (and also receiving code "from the source") and support
while the plugin php code itself is available through the GPL (for
free... as in beer). The plugins (and support) we purchased are well
worth what we paid.