Martijn Tonies wrote:

>>> I'm concerned about:
>>>
>>> 1. Protection of the intellectual property.
>>> 2. Ease of design & maintenance.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance for any guidance.
>>>
>> My systems is used by a limited number of clients, each have their own
>> tweaks and specialties. Each client has 10-50 users. I need to be able
>> to change some logic anytime and as fast as possible. For me it's a huge
>> boon to be able to have *all* the business logics in the DB. I just
>> change a trigger or a procedure. I have ended up with the *exact* same
>> front end for all my customers.
>>
>> This is of lesser concern to you in your case. IMHO considering
>> protection of intellectual property this is the main drawback for you.
>> Triggers and procedures can not be sufficiently "protected".
>
> They cannot? How many people do you know that can read BLR
> fluently? :-)
>

Actually I don't know many people who can even read SQL fluently :).

But I argue that the level of protection is relevant only in the context
of the value of the property. I wrote this having no knowledge of the
original posters assessment of his or hers works value but the fact that
it was number one on his or hers list.

The article I was referring to was this (last chapter of page):

http://www.firebirdsql.org/manual/fbmetasecur-solution.html

and I do agree with the Geoff here. Reenginering an executable is much
more work. Conclusion; don't code that algorithm that your company spent
three years of research into an stored procedure.

Regards,

/D