Is there a way to protect my PHP script from being edited?

Question

I've been working on a PHP class to build into a redistributable API. I'm trying to determine a way to effectively do a licensing check. At this point, I have the script check the URL that the code is running on, do a handshake on my server to see if there's a key for that URL, and then check the key against a local key in a config file.

My question is, is there a way to make this particular PHP file un-editable for future users? My predicament is that, while I do this check now, any future user of the code could easily go into my core class and swap my returns from the auth check method to be true no mater what the server response is.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You could do so by encoding your script with IonCube for example. There is a small fee per encoded file (I think it's calculated by LOC). But then you will have to distribute a license file with your software and the IonCube decoder (which is free) will be part of your software requirements list.