Is it a bad idea to use backbonejs as a paid service site?

Question

I'm working on a Software as a Service site which we will use backbone primarily, but what I'm noticing is most of the logic for the application is lying on backbone. While we use ruby mostly as just a session controller and a bridge to the database it seems. So our site is very susceptible to being copied. (just a matter of copying the js files...)

I know this may be a dumb question but, is it anyway I can avoid this or would have a client side heavy application like this be bad for this type of application?

I'm not sure on how I can secure this site structure at this point.

Answer 1

Sure it can be copied, that is a risk you take with JavaScript. You have the same problem with your markup and your CSS as well, but I'd say you rarely see someone stealing it anyway. There is probably more to your service than just your code (your design, your copy, your business model, your customer support). Even if they did copy your code, you will probably be able to deliver a better service than them anyway, since your are devoted to your product, which they clearly are not.

Another way of looking at the whole thing is to see it as the beauty of web development. You are free to open up the code of any web page and learn from it.

If you still want to "protect" your code, your best shot is probably to use something like UglifyJS or similar, to minimize and obfuscate your code. Sure the "thief" could then use a prettyfier to get indentation etc. back, but the code will still be obscure and practically impossible to maintain. So it would probably not be worth the job of stealing it in the long run.

Answer 2

Protecting your javascript libraries is hard because you let your clients download them. The best thing you can do to protect them is to run a obfuscation and minification tool on them before you deploy them into production.