Love2D closed source compilation

[TheoLua]

Hello, I was wondering when compiling the project if it is possible to keep it closed source. When I watch tutorials on "compiling" the project, it keeps the source code in the executable which is against my favor. I looked around for a solution but I found nothing.

[slime]

There have been several forum threads about that over the years, here's one: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=81386#p192044

[NickRock]

Copyright is what protects your code.

[TheoLua]

So what I got is, you need to protect your code, rather than hiding it.

[slime]

You can hide it as well if you really want, but hiding it doesn't legally protect you or your code – copyright law does.

[bizziboi]

Unless you implement it in C++ and use LuaJit to call it or expose it to Lua there's no way you can hide it, but at that point what's the point of using Love2D.

You can encrypt your source in the most sophisticated way, but at one point it has to be sent to the lua parser and that point can be easily intercepted. You could of course use bytecode, but that can be decompiled. I guess you could change the bytecode values and go with that to make life a bit harder for people.

The question is, why do you want to hide your code. If it is because you think other people will steal it - meh, most programmers with experience can copy a game anyhow if they so desire, heck cloning may be faster than trying to understand someone else's code - check the appstore, everything is cloned in record time without source access.

If it is because you need to hide details to prevent cheaters, not a good idea, security through obscurity is not the right way to approach things.

[ivan]

I would further add that 'hiding' or compiling your Lua code means extra work and maintenance.
Nobody cares about the code, unless your game is so popular (ex: Minecraft) that people want to mod it.
So from a practical point of view, the question becomes would you rather spend your time
- obfuscating code that nobody is going to look at or
- focus your efforts on making a cool game that people want to play

[SiENcE]

To make it short:

Code is only the garbage of a coder.
The real value is the coder.

[Clyybber]

A first i thought this was a compilation of closed source love2d games...