[thelist] [OT] cfdecrypt, was: (Gift Culture)

[Chris Evans]

To possibly bring this full circle, and so everyone can appreciate the
irony, the tag Frank downloaded was a Fuseware tag.  Frank did ask us for
the source code so he could learn from it.  Unfortunately, we were all away
for a three day weekend and didn't get the message until today.

The tag in question was written, encrypted, and distributed when the Tag
Gallery and CF encryption were first introduced - I think this was in the
3.0 time frame.  I doubt we would encrypt freeware now, and with the
availability of decryptors, I doubt we would encrypt too much. I'm not even
sure if the developer has the source code available, and it is probably
quite embarrassing code to look at, much less good code to learn from
<grin>.  But Frank is welcome to it, whether he decrypts it or we track down
the crap that is the source code.

However, as a commercial developer, I do not feel that you have the right to
steal what I consider to be proprietary intellectual property - in a digital
world, these are what separate us from our competitors.  I don't mind
somebody looking at my end result and trying to figure out how I did it.
They could possibly come up with a better method, and become a formidable
competitor.  I welcome the challenge.  But I don't like people stealing my
code, for whatever reason.  I spent a great amount of time honing my skills
and feel I give back to the community more than I took.  I appreciate Frank
asking us for the source, and we are happy to share it with him ( if we can
find it).  However,  decrypting something without permission is theft.

When I spend months or years developing an application, there are going to
be a lot of things that are common knowledge, but one or two things that are
my flashes of brilliance and creativity.  Those are mine.  It's the
difference between looking at source code to learn HTML tricks versus
copying an entire site.  I think the CF Admin was originally encrypted to
protect unpublicized (and insecure) tags from becoming public knowledge.
Once it was unencrypted, it opened a security hole for numerous CF site.
Thanks, decryptor.

I could go on at length, but I think you get my point.


Chris Evans
chris at fuseware.com
http://www.fuseware.com