Ultimate Software Protection
This is an idea of a costly way of protecting your software IP, We now have Flash USB thumb drives going upto 100Mb, You now need to make an ASIC for a thumb drive which manages flash storage of 100Mb and also does some simple logic and maths, all this inside the thumb drive. - 2003
ASIC, SOC, CPLD, DSP and FPGANow put the software you make within the custom thumb drive and make it into an partial java based application server. So even copying or reading RAM will not expose the program binaries on PC. Now you have a custom thumb drive with embedded application software to sell just like objects, and cannot be copied. This thumbware you sell will be bought by the user and all he needs to do is plug it in the USB port and a icon will come with a balloon in the notification area and start using the new thumbware you bought. Remove thumbware the application will close, take it wherever you want.
The thumbware will not be copied as ASIC is custom and some computation is within the thumb and major computation is in the PC.
Data Interface - Printer Port, Virtual Instrumentation.
Then you can make it OS independent, as it will be a embedded java application, the xml database can be within the thumb itself and an encrypted copy on HDD.
Now with Cloud Computing and Saas, you can have part of the Software Elements as Webware. This makes the software more copy-proof and also helps backup your data if needed as a service. Then the biggest advantage is, that it is available on any type of device like Tablet or Phone. - 2014
delabs Open Computing Ideas - 2003 - Open Source