How to add license to my Unix based perl project

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I have a UNIX based perl project, with a main.pl file which further uses some of the user defined perl modules. I want to add licensing to my perl project. What are the best ways to to it?

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Dave Sherohman On

Consider all of the millions of dollars that the entertainment and software industries have spent on DRM schemes to protect their digital wares, and how few of those products make it a week past release without being cracked. You're not going to do any better.

And that's without Perl making the cracks easier. Because the Perl binary needs access to the source code, it's effectively impossible to prevent the user from having access to that code. You can obfuscate it, you can use a packer to make it a standalone (pseudo-)binary file, etc., but all of these things are relatively trivial to work around.

The best approach, therefore, is to approach this as a legal problem rather than a technical one. Hire a good intellectual property lawyer and have them write up a licensing contract. Make your customers sign (not just click through - sign) this contract before receiving the software. If they violate the terms of the agreement, sic the lawyer on them.