I am currently considering to build a single page web app using restful api and put the entire UI logic in javascript on the client side. This design concept has been adopted by twitter and several other web apps.
However, I am wondering how to prevent user from stealing my javascript code, since my app logic is all stored in javascript. Does product like gmail, grooveshark, or twitter not care about this issue? do they not care if people can just replicate their app by copy the javascript? if so, does it not bring a lot of risk to the business?
I hope someone can answer my question as I am figuring out how other people are building their app. and if anyone has similar concern on this issue.
As previously stated, there are no way to prevent “code stealing”. Just remember we are in a world where code isn’t valued anymore. It’s so easy to build an application that what really matters is the branding around it.
Anyone can build a facebook of it’s own, but the real value is the number of users on facebook. I don’t believe that company tries to protect their code anymore, they in fact make it easy for you to get it via github or the likes. Talking about their products and the way there are made are more beneficial to them than you think.
Just take a look at twitter bootstrap. The investment they put in that code is well rewarded by all the people building apps on their technology. It reinforce the technical value of their systems.