Whilst we would always recommend the use of the ionCube Encoder product to protect your PHP source code when distributing your product to customers and users, there are several other products available to choose from.

To help with this, we have launched a comparison website which lists the available encoders and compares their features. The feature set is standardised so that it is possible to compare like for like in a clear manner.

Currently, there's fifteen encoders listed with all of their stats - protection types, restrictions available, what OSes it has loaders for, the availability of licensing, and the pricing. There's links to get more specific information on each as well.

The topic at hand is Oracle buying one dual license open source company after another. This is getting a lot of people worried. Of course it also got me thinking.

Dual licensing is a business model associated with companies distributing their code under two very different licenses. However the same code is also provided through some open source license, usually one of the so called reciprocal licenses (GPL and friends).

That system is pretty nice on many levels. Everybody gets the code with the license they prefer. The dual licensing company benefits through a cheap open source style distribution model. However they can still make money with selling licenses which is a very lucrative business model, while they can also make money through support.

He continues, mentioning some of the serious flaws with this dual license model, including the inability for a company, at any time, to move to a more closed-source method of development. He even mentions a situation where a project could loose all developers.

And, in his words: So are we up for the challenge if we are faced with such an exodus? ]]> Thu, 16 Feb 2006 06:51:02 -0600