Closed-source, possible?

[Davis Chord]

I'm a fairly new Python developer, so I hope that some of my ignorance in
this area is understandable. :)

I'm developing an application, and I'm uncertain about releasing it as
open-source. The main reason I thought about open-source was because ever
Python program I've seen is, truly. Doh.

I've heard/seen/used the pyc program that turns your .py files into .pyc
files, but I'm wondering how easily someone can get to your source from
these compiled files. If it's not possible to have a portable progam thats'
source cannot be easily accessed (or at all :P), then open-source is just
easier.

Thanks!

[Chris S.]

Davis Chord wrote:

I'm a fairly new Python developer, so I hope that some of my ignorance in
this area is understandable. :)

I'm developing an application, and I'm uncertain about releasing it as
open-source. The main reason I thought about open-source was because ever
Python program I've seen is, truly. Doh.

I've heard/seen/used the pyc program that turns your .py files into .pyc
files, but I'm wondering how easily someone can get to your source from
these compiled files. If it's not possible to have a portable progam thats'
source cannot be easily accessed (or at all :P), then open-source is just
easier.

Google for 'decompyle'. It converts Python byte-code into readable code.
The most recent version now seems to be proprietary, offered as a
'service', but you can find old source archives laying around the net.

[Roger Binns]

Davis Chord wrote:

I've heard/seen/used the pyc program that turns your .py files into
.pyc files, but I'm wondering how easily someone can get to your
source from these compiled files. If it's not possible to have a
portable progam thats' source cannot be easily accessed (or at all
:P), then open-source is just easier.

That exact topic comes up fairly frequently on this list. I would
suggest reading the archives first which you can do at either of
these links:

http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.python.general
http://groups.google.com/groups?group=comp.lang.python

Roger