Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!decwrl!ucbvax!MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM!wmb
From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Non-Forth systems/languages.
Message-ID: <9007181332.AA21576@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 17 Jul 90 22:51:13 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 30

> Imagine my surprise when I saw the advertisement for a product by Gimpel
> Software called "The C Shroud" in this month's Dr. Dobb's Journal.
> To quote from the ad, "Don't lose sleep while distributing C source code!
> Translate your C programs into an obscure form, compilable but not
> understandable....

>  Now I ask you, am I nuts, or what?  Have I missed something along the
>  line?  Pay almost two hundred bucks for a product whose purpose is to
>  create unintelligible source code???

C source code is one of the few portable means of distributing an
application to run on a variety of platforms.

It also offers no security against somebody ripping off your work.
(Regardless of whether or not software *ought* to be 'free', there
are a lot of people who make their living based on it not being free).

This product fulfils a valid economic need: the ability to distribute
a single "shrink-wrapped application" that will run on a variety of
platforms, without "giving away the jewels".

Several years ago, I proposed exactly this (machine-obfuscated C code)
as a standard distribution means for Unix applications.  This is
essentially an intermediate step between an "ABI" (Application Binary
Interface; hot buzz word for Unix application delivery) and an "API"
(Application Program Interface).  It offers some of the benefits of
the API without requiring companies to give away their intellectual
property.

Mitch