Encode 3.0

[bfarber]

Oh yes Digi and Alεx, I won't disagree that there ARE ways to accomplish many modifications that currently use file edits without those file edits. But as you conceded, there ARE places that either (1) require file edits, or (2) run much more efficiently by using file edits instead of some sort of include. For example, if you want to load a member's points to show it in the navigation bar or something like that - you can modify class_session.php to load it with the rest of the member data and then just reference the value in templates, or you can do an include and run a SECOND db query to the member's table to get the data.

Will the second query hurt? No, probably not. But it is "unnecessary" and things will naturally run more efficiently by just grabbing the extra column in the first query.

While a lot of stuff don't need to be added as hooks, they are still a good idea in the long run to continue allowing functionality to be added without modifying the files, no matter what way you cut it. As long as the hooks system itself doesn't cause any resource impact (we've talked about this somewhat in private before - i.e. hooks need to be registered, and instead of just checking for plugin files at runtime, check registered hooks to see if one needs to run in a specific spot, and then load that specific hook, etc.) it would still be a good idea in my eyes. Key is to make it efficient - it should have no overhead when not used.

It's a little irrelevant though. The base fact that I was getting at is that some things can't be accomplished if the source code were encoded in it's current state.

[marcele]

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but encoding your scripts is untimately futile. Currently BOTH zend guard AND ioncube can be fully decoded to their full source code. Sorry guys!

[Digi]

Oh yes Digi and Alεx, I won't disagree that there ARE ways to accomplish many modifications that currently use file edits without those file edits. But as you conceded, there ARE places that either (1) require file edits, or (2) run much more efficiently by using file edits instead of some sort of include. For example, if you want to load a member's points to show it in the navigation bar or something like that - you can modify class_session.php to load it with the rest of the member data and then just reference the value in templates, or you can do an include and run a SECOND db query to the member's table to get the data.

But lets be honest here. What's more efficient? A select all query by default or a hook ssystem that checks on each query if another column should be selected. Mods like that won't be helped by hooks and hooks will never fully accomidate them.

Will the second query hurt? No, probably not. But it is "unnecessary" and things will naturally run more efficiently

Just as they would w/o any sort of hooks system. The problem with a hook system is that you have functions that check to see if it should be doing something. On the other hand (using template tweaks and plugins) these are set "on demand". This means that if the forum doesn't use the area in question, nothing needs to be done and no performance is lost. The only people loosing performance (if any substantial amount) are those whom choose to. A hook system is a constant variable that will cause at minimum some degradation of performance to all IPB forums. A problem that is exponentially greater on larger forums (whom rarely use modifications anyway and tend to stick to component or plugin type things)

Key is to make it efficient - it should have no overhead when not used.

Which is why I think that IPS should focus on making plugins whereever possible first and THEN filling the gaps with hooks. That's what my post above was about.

It's a little irrelevant though. The base fact that I was getting at is that some things can't be accomplished if the source code were encoded in it's current state.

You are right, I didn't mean to push off topic ;)

P.S. No matter what way you slice it, using the html logic to load files in the skin templates is retarded. Use the template include functionality and tell the person to enable it for all templates if you need to use it. We've already had this talk before, but it seems things haven't changed. The template file/url include system is self contained and, thus, much safer overall than your method. The includes within templates (as shown above) should be disabled since it is a work around to the security that file/url includes are supposed to control.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but encoding your scripts is untimately futile. Currently BOTH zend guard AND ioncube can be fully decoded to their full source code. Sorry guys!

Knowledge of the subject and not spouting off hearsay would help your opinion. (not to mention reading this very topic for a response to a similar accusation)

[Lindsey_]

I just had a good thought.
How about IPS encode the IPB 3.0 Hosted version. And IPS keep IPB 3.x un encoded for us paying $149 or how ever much.

[Tom T]

I just had a good thought.

How about IPS encode the IPB 3.0 Hosted version. And IPS keep IPB 3.x un encoded for us paying $149 or how ever much.

Hosted versions are already encoded...

[Lindsey_]

Yes I know that as i have a hosted forum.

But i was talking about the install folder being encoded also while you are hosted with them.

just my thoughts

[zigs]

Yes I know that as i have a hosted forum.

But i was talking about the install folder being encoded also while you are hosted with them.

just my thoughts

But that is penalising people who host with them?! They would just go to a different host

[Energizer]

I fail to see the big deal with ioncube myself - the whole "out of principle" argument seems improper. Piracy is a huge problem, and a huge cost to paying customers in the long run. Imagine if there are 10,000 pirates. Say 5,000 would buy the software if they couldn't pirate it (some people just refuse to pay for software). If the license cost was spread out amongst 5000 more people, in theory it could be a lot lower and still make the same amount of overall revenue. Hypothetical mind you.

I do not think that it would get buying really much if they encode. Such people want of use only free of charge. They if necessary go to another software.

There's not just the issue of piracy and use of the software itself, but also the theft of key code that we've found in dozens of other "projects." Like most serious software companies, we spend a significant amount of time, money and resources to bring you quality products and servicees.

Can they say in which products they have found this? If they can prove this, then they can proceed against it really? You have the copyright anyway?

That is highly unfortunate and I am sorry to hear that. I will not be buying Nexus or any other product then if they will be encoded.

I agree with them fully! I also will buy nothing which is encoded. One should fight the abuse, but not his customers!
There are for certain many customers who depending make the purchase of a licence whether they encode the IPB in future or not. You should make one statement for encoding the IPB once and for all obligatorily so that everyone knows to what they are. You say that it is not planned. This does not sound good. I hear out, this she want to keep the option of the encoding open there. This makes their current customers uncertain very much. People who are interested in the IPB do not buy a licence possibility wise. I last gratefully if they could meet a final decision whether the IPB future you encode or not.

[Lindy]

That is highly unfortunate and I am sorry to hear that. I will not be buying Nexus or any other product then if they will be encoded.

:unsure: Interesting (although not surprising) that you would say that without even knowing if it's necessary for the product(s) to be unencoded (which I assure you, it won't be.) In the case of Nexus, encoding will be necessary, there is no other way to enforce the licensing. IPB is the only current and planned product to offer optional renewals. Other products, moving forward, will require renewal to continue use of the product -- this is the way nearly all software works and shouldn't be new territory for most customers. I'd offer up the challenge to find a commercial alternative to Nexus that offers term licensing and a viewable source product.

We needn't keep hashing the "it's not going to stop everyone argument" -- we're well aware of that. :) Much like a lock on your house isn't going to keep out determined thieves, it will keep the honest folks honest. So long as you don't have to unlock 17 deadbolts, perform a retina scan and a biometric reading, you shouldn't be overly concerned. Nearly any commercial software venture these days contains some sort of encoding, licensing or activation scheme. It's something we're all going to have to adapt to and as someone who regularly becomes annoyed by activation schemes, we have a good handle on how to minimize inconvenience to legitimate customers.

As for IPB, no encoding will be done to the product if it will cause an inconvenience to those wishing to modify IPB. Options haven't even been thoroughly explored at this point and is certainly not something to get all worked up about. :)

[Tony]

Other products, moving forward, will require renewal to continue use of the product -- this is the way nearly all software works and shouldn't be new territory for most customers. I'd offer up the challenge to find a commercial alternative to Nexus that offers term licensing [i]and[/i] a viewable source product.

Well, then i believe there will be 2 version of licensing for IP.Nexus. I mean like Modernbill have, one kind is to pay something like 120$ for license, and then you need to pay 60$ each month, and one is perpetual on which you need to pay 500$ and after 6 months you need to pay another 60$ for upgrades&support. :)

[marcele]

:unsure: Interesting (although not surprising) that you would say that without even knowing if it's necessary for the product(s) to be unencoded (which I assure you, it won't be.) In the case of Nexus, encoding will be necessary, there is no other way to enforce the licensing. IPB is the only current and planned product to offer optional renewals. Other products, moving forward, will require renewal to continue use of the product -- this is the way nearly all software works and shouldn't be new territory for most customers. I'd offer up the challenge to find a commercial alternative to Nexus that offers term licensing [i]and[/i] a viewable source product.

I'm curious .. what exactly are you going to encode it with? Like I said before .. both the latest Zend Guard AND Ioncube are both fully decodeable.

[Louis M.]

I'm curious .. what exactly are you going to encode it with? Like I said before .. both the latest Zend Guard AND Ioncube are both fully decodeable.

Ok then what program would you reccomend? Last time I checked there was no 100% secure encoder out there. :blink:

[marcele]

Ok then what program would you reccomend? Last time I checked there was no 100% secure encoder out there. :blink:

Thats my point exactly :P

[Louis M.]

Regardless of whatever system, if any, IPS decides to use there will be "hacked" or "nulled" copy out there. The entire intent, like stated previously, is keep honest people honest. Doing nothing is almost as convuluted as AES encrypting everything (let us not start argueing technicalities, this was merely an example).

I argued this point with a professor in one of my recent college classes. He claimed that encoding web software destroyed the open source community. I countered by saying, its not anyone elses right to choose how I release my code. Its up to me, and me alone. I will never be able to release my product with out the chance of piracy. It will always be there. Does WalMart say "well since we can't stop shoplifting we should fire our internal control employees"?

[FrostedPopTart]

:unsure: Interesting (although not surprising) that you would say that without even knowing if it's necessary for the product(s) to be unencoded (which I assure you, it won't be.) In the case of Nexus, encoding will be necessary, there is no other way to enforce the licensing. IPB is the only current and planned product to offer optional renewals. Other products, moving forward, will require renewal to continue use of the product -- this is the way nearly all software works and shouldn't be new territory for most customers. I'd offer up the challenge to find a commercial alternative to Nexus that offers term licensing [i]and[/i] a viewable source product.

We needn't keep hashing the "it's not going to stop everyone argument" -- we're well aware of that. :) Much like a lock on your house isn't going to keep out determined thieves, it [b]will[/b] keep the honest folks honest. So long as you don't have to unlock 17 deadbolts, perform a retina scan and a biometric reading, you shouldn't be overly concerned. Nearly any commercial software venture these days contains some sort of encoding, licensing or activation scheme. It's something we're all going to have to adapt to and as someone who regularly becomes annoyed by activation schemes, we have a good handle on how to minimize inconvenience to legitimate customers.

As for IPB, no encoding will be done to the product if it will cause an inconvenience to those wishing to modify IPB. Options haven't even been thoroughly explored at this point and is certainly not something to get all worked up about. :)

/me hopes that I am not mod queued now

Well for one, there won't be any reading of the funny PHP code comments now. Two, it's a lot harder to modify the software. Three, you don't have a Zend encoded version; so since you only have an Ioncube one, and some hosts don't allow that; what do you plan to do about that? Fourthly, due to the Ioncube loaders being required to be shipped with the download; that significantly increases the download (and file upload) times; which is not good for those with slow connections (or servers).

[bfarber]

I'm curious .. what exactly are you going to encode it with? Like I said before .. both the latest Zend Guard AND Ioncube are both fully decodeable.

Actually, there is no evidence anywhere that I can find personally of the latest version of ioncube being decoded. ;) ioncube released an update roughly a year ago after it's first version was "hacked" and since then I haven't found any evidence of it's latest version being able to be decoded. If you have proof/evidence of the contrary though, I'd surely like to see it (even if for my own interests).

Besides, as Lindy said, nothing will stop the dedicated hackers. I mean, if you get into the FBI and CIA databases, surely you can figure out how to decode a PHP script encoder. It's a fact of software development. An unfortunate one.

/me hopes that I am not mod queued now

Well for one, there won't be any reading of the funny PHP code comments now. Two, it's a lot harder to modify the software. Three, you don't have a Zend encoded version; so since you only have an Ioncube one, and some hosts don't allow that; what do you plan to do about that? Fourthly, due to the Ioncube loaders being required to be shipped with the download; that significantly increases the download (and file upload) times; which is not good for those with slow connections (or servers).

You're not mod-queued that I can see. ;)

1) The ability to read funny comments hardly trumps intellectual property protection, unfortunately :P

2) That's why there are hooks and plugins, the ability to add custom applications, and so forth. I'm personally going to be writing some stuff up as "proof of concepts" for developers, after working on the resources site. :) There's a TON you can do without ever touching the base code.

3) I'm unsure of what those plans are, though I remember talk of looking at alternative options. I can't answer that unfortunately.

4) Again, not a huge concern. The loaders could even be zipped up and offerred separately, as like you said it increases the download size, would only be needed upon initial installation, and many hosts support ioncube without the loaders (they load a centralized loader via php.ini).

I'm curious if at this point the topic should be moved to the Nexus forum. :unsure: The conversation is kind of bouncing between Nexus and IPB, though it's a centralized point of discussion (encoding).

[Lindsey_]

Or maybe just into this area
http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?showforum=297

[Alex]

So am I right in thinking that if you don't renew Nexus, it wont work anymore?

[Lindsey_]

So am I right in thinking that if you don't renew Nexus, it wont work anymore?

That would suck.
If i do buy IP.Nexus i will be spending around 10 hrs a day trying to get a better template out of it then 6 months down the track I gotta renew.

I don't think so. If I'm gonna pay over $100 for it i want it for a life time like the ipb but for updates you need to pay.

[FrostedPopTart]

You're not mod-queued that I can see. ;)

1) The ability to read funny comments hardly trumps intellectual property protection, unfortunately :P

2) That's why there are hooks and plugins, the ability to add custom applications, and so forth. I'm personally going to be writing some stuff up as "proof of concepts" for developers, after working on the resources site. :) There's a TON you can do without ever touching the base code.

3) I'm unsure of what those plans are, though I remember talk of looking at alternative options. I can't answer that unfortunately.

4) Again, not a huge concern. The loaders could even be zipped up and offerred separately, as like you said it increases the download size, would only be needed upon initial installation, and many hosts support ioncube without the loaders (they load a centralized loader via php.ini).

I'm curious if at this point the topic should be moved to the Nexus forum. :unsure: The conversation is kind of bouncing between Nexus and IPB, though it's a centralized point of discussion (encoding).

Yeah I know that now. That was a "just in case" type of thing. :P

1. Why not just encode the licensing section and leave the rest open? Surely the whole application doesn't need to be encoded? :unsure:
2. What about for those of us (not specifically naming anyone) who aren't that well versed in that type of stuff?
3. I see, glad to hear that other options are being looked at.
4. Many hosts do, yes; but I know I read on here not too long ago that some don't. It was those hosts that I was referring to.

To get back on the topic of IPB 3.0...

Glad to hear that it won't be encoded. You guys are right that some mods to the software just can't be done without touching the source code (shoutbox, board leaders legend, etc.)

[bfarber]

Yeah I know that now. That was a "just in case" type of thing. :P

1. Why not just encode the licensing section and leave the rest open? Surely the whole application doesn't need to be encoded? :unsure:

2. What about for those of us (not specifically naming anyone) who aren't that well versed in that type of stuff?

3. I see, glad to hear that other options are being looked at.

4. Many hosts do, yes; but I know I read on here not too long ago that some don't. It was those hosts that I was referring to.

To get back on the topic of IPB 3.0...

Glad to hear that it won't be encoded. You guys are right that some mods to the software just can't be done without touching the source code (shoutbox, board leaders legend, etc.)

1) I don't know the exact plans. :) I was just responding to your points. Someone else would have to answer that.

2) Well, unfortunately, that's a crutch. We'd love for people to start using all of the hooking functionality in IPB properly, so that we don't have 10,000 customers going "not another upgrade, now I have to reinstall my mods". If the people making those mods used the appropriate tools, that number would likely be cut in half.

In other words, we can't make these plans based on people who don't use what IS available. Instead, we need to better explain/document what is available so that users use it appropriately.

Nexus is much much more powerful in this respect, so mods would be less of an issue than in IPB.

4) Many hosts don't install PHP, don't keep it anywhere near up to date, enable safe_mode, disable required PHP functions, auto-output ads on free hosting accounts, and any other number of things that cause problems in IPB. Not every script can accomodate every host.

For the record regarding IPB, both of the mods you cited COULD be done without modifying the source. ;) It's trivial to add template includes simply by enabling them in init.php, which requires you only to edit your skin (and then plugin files the mod author supplies would be called and executed, replacing the include code with the output from the plugin). There are examples of mods that can't work without modifications presently (such as awarding "points" when someone posts a new topic, for example) but those two things you cited can be done without file edits, if done properly.

[Mark]

If I'm gonna pay over $100 for it i want it for a life time like the ipb but for updates you need to pay.

Then I don't think you'll be buying Nexus.

I really think people misunderstand how huge Nexus is and how much it is therefore going to cost.
Let me give you an example you can probably relate to. In my free time I sometimes make IPB mods for people. Earlier this week I was paid $200 for a mod which took me 3 days to make. Nexus has been in development for years and is 100 times more complicated than the measly mod I made (to actually compare the zip sizes Nexus is 88.8 times larger).

If you think Nexus is going to be the same price as IPB, or even double the price of IPB, you are mistaken. (Not that I know how much IPN is going to be... just common sense)

[Digi]

I'd actually expect the nexus core to be around $300-800. It's the modules included with it that I think are going to be the killers.

[bfarber]

I love these price estimates. :P

Considering I actually (honestly) have no idea how much it's going to cost either. Seems member guesses are all over the map though. I've seen estimates from $50 up to thousands of dollars.

[Lindsey_]

1. Why not just encode the licensing section and leave the rest open? Surely the whole application doesn't need to be encoded? :unsure:

Yes thats what i mean Joshua . Someone knows what i mean :D