[wp-hackers] Premium plugin protection

[Mike Schinkel]

On Dec 13, 2010, at 10:40 PM, Otto wrote:
> Obfuscating your source code makes other developers hate you, badmouth
> you, and send as much negative press your way as possible. Why?
> Because you have made them look bad.
> 
> Friend of mine called me up a few months ago. Said her boss was having
> problems with a WordPress installation (big local blog). I wandered
> down to their offices, met with them, found out what the problem was,
> sat down at her desk... and got totally screwed over because the (paid
> for) theme used frickin' encryption on the functions.php file. All
> they wanted was some relatively minor changes, but because of the
> encryption (good hard stuff too, not easy to decode), there was
> basically nothing I could do. I had to make my apologies as best I
> could. Then I immediately got on Twitter and badmouthed the hell out
> of the theme creators.
> 
> Consider your users and what's best for them. What's *really* best for
> them is not having to come to you for every single little problem. If
> they can learn something and solve issues themselves, then you should
> let them do so. What are you selling here, after all? Lock in?
> 
> People who obfuscate or otherwise make their code hard for their users
> to use are scum. Period.

+1000.  I could not agree more.

-Mike