[wxPython-users] Distribution & Auto-Updater

[Josiah Carlson]

Kevin Ollivier <kevino at theolliviers.com> wrote:
> On May 1, 2007, at 3:19 PM, Marcus wrote:
> > My only concern with using Python on the client-side is the  
> > distribution and updater issue. I've read py2exe's docs and info  
> > about pyInstaller and the like, but I don't see an easy way to  
> > divide an application into DLL-like modules so that users can  
> > download just a portion of the application at a time, without  
> > resorting to storing all of my python source code on the client in  
> > cleartext.
> 
> You could distribute just the .pyc files, which IIUC are like Java  
> bytecode files, if you want to avoid sending the files in clear text.  
> I will say, though, that I don't know if there's a way to "reverse- 
> engineer" source files from those bytecode files. You could try  
> running pyobfuscate (http://www.lysator.liu.se/~astrand/projects/ 
> pyobfuscate/) on the source files first to make it so that even if  
> they are decompiled, they won't (easily) be human readable.

There is decompyle which from what I understand works quite well at
recovering source from .pyc files.  Running it through pyobfuscate may
or may not help.

Alternatively, one could distribute source in an encrypted format.  It
will need to be decrypted and loaded, at which would leave one open for
theft, but it would prevent casual source code theft.


 - Josiah