[python-win32] Anti-reverse Python-based binaries?

[Kris Hardy]

A few notes regarding intellectual property protection...

If I remember correctly, Microsoft's first Commerce Server was written 
in Python by a company that they acquired, and Microsoft actually 
shipped it as .pyc files.  (I may be wrong, but that's what I remember 
hearing).

Whether or not to protect your code (and how to do it) depends on what 
you are building.  If it has a large audience, especially a consumer 
audience, and is high-value, it's an issue.  In that case, my suggestion 
is to look at Cython.  Move the "special sauce" code into Cython 
modules, and compile them down to .so/.dll files.

I know of a few companies that do this, one of which has a full desktop 
app using Qt/PySide, and they're really happy with using a blend of 
Python and Cython.

If your code has a limited customer base, especially if they are not 
especially technical, you might be good enough just giving them the .py 
files and enforcing your rights legally.  At a company I used to work 
for, a large portion of our released application was in source files, 
but the market was small and the users were non-technical, so there 
really wasn't any reason to protect it other than enforce our license 
agreement.

-Kris