Compiling PHP Decision

chengdee

As I'm about to release some commercial PHP scripts for a low price, I'm thinking of compiling the scripts with Zend Encoder to protect a certain part of the codes but leave the front-end codes to be freely customizable.

So, my concern is:

How will people react to the compiled protection? Since most scripts are open source. Will it become a buying factor?
Zend Decoder, not all hosting supported. Will it become a hassle for the users, since they need to ask their hosting provider to install and only can be run?
Code being replicate by competitors if left open source.

So the decision is whether to Compile or Not Compile. Which is better?

LordShryku

Well, personally...I wouldn't buy your code. But, well, I'm a coder. Something went wrong, I wouldn't want to have to call someone up(you are providing tech support, right), and wait for them to figure it out, then send me a patch, and blah, blah, blah. Being a coder...I'd wanna fix it myself and move on.

chengdee

I feel that most coders are likely to find free open source scripts, and avoid paying if necessary.

They are unlikely to buy because they want to prove they can produce better code themselves.

LordShryku

Your reason's why are way off. But you are correct that people who write their own code will go for open source if it's out there. If you're making something that is already out there and GPL'ed, you better have one hell of a support contract to sell yours....

Weedpacket

LordShryku's described position would be fairly common among (fellow) developers - but if your perceived market is the general public, then they would in general not really care if it's Open Source or not, so long as it does what they want and is within their budget (it's not like J. Random Executive is going to get an urge to hack your db abstraction layer).

That said, be prepared to offer decent support; what with the OS apps for just about every extant purpose already out there, your product would have to offer significant Value Added to compete; either in functionality or after-sales support.

chengdee

After sales support such as optional service to integrate the scripts in web pages will be a good idea in this case.

Other than developers, there are lots of designers that know how to paint well, but not even a simple command like chmod.