Question

I do quite large project for a client and I would like (somehow) to secure code form event that mid dishonest client was not going to pay me for the work. 🙂
The contract is written that the project must provide application with a sources.
So far I mostly been writing in .NET where I was protecting myself against such an eventuality in way that I was creating class witch get POST some parameters with shutdown application. This class was thrown into a dll witch was already compiled, so no one could change the source.
Is there a similar possibility in PHP? I can do the same thing (as in .NET case) but clever customers with access to PHP can find above class and I just cut it.
Maybe it is some other way to secure myself?
Suturing of the database also eliminated for similar reasons as above.

Answer 1

PHP is an interpreted language; as a result, it doesn’t compile your code. Your best bet is to stick with .NET, where you can compile the functional part of the application into a .dll, or use Java and compile it into a bytecode.
PHP wasn’t built for compiling.
What you can do is probably host the application on your server till the client has made a payment, and then upload it to the client’s server.
Or you can make it downloadable from your server (only after payment), along with configuration scripts that is configurable by anyone with a few clicks of the button; something similar to the way some of the PHP frameworks (e.g. WordPress) work.