Feb 05 2006

b e n r u t h » Instant Report – My thoughts

Category: Things That Get Me Maderm @ 3:59 pm

b e n r u t h » Instant Report is more than happy to use the apache server, php to render it’s scripts, mysql to do it’s database queries, and wordpress to blog on.


They Use:
#1. Apache
#2. php
#3. mysql
#4. wordpress

All of these are open source, available free to download, and if needed you can modify the code to suit your needs.

The precious little ‘instant report’ script which enables you to download an ms-excel spreadsheet, html, or a web page is not open source, it’s encoded to where can’t read it.

WTF?!

That’s a bunch of BS man. People like this are such hypocrites. Why even make it avilable for download?!

Let me give you a run down on ‘how he did it.’ It’s not a trade secret.

First he used some functions from
http://www.php.net/mysql
To make the connection to his/your mysql database.
then there was the header statement — most important

if ($display=='excel' || $display == 'downloadhtml') {
// This would downlad that html
header('mime: x-force-download');
}

If your $_GET was to download excel he used some stuff from:
http://www.php.net/com
If your $_GET was to download html, or just display the web page he printed out a table standard <table> element

It’s all just a bunch of foreach statements. *NOT* complicated at all, and certainly not a ‘trade secret.’

It bothers me that he’s such a hypocrite almost everything he’s using is open source. The only thing that isn’t is the COM/NET stuff.

My point is anyone with a little php knowledge could have done that script, and perhaps better inside of 1 day of coding.

I never ran the thing … I was just curious if he was using a COM object or an external library, if so I wanted to find out which one.

I see a bunch of encrypted data and asked myself … what’s he hiding? Is your script ‘phoning home?’ Listing my directories? Deleting files? Installing a back door? Adding users?

My point is if you’re going to run Apache, write in php, use a database like mysql, and then blog about your stuff using wordpress, then maybe, just maybe you should share the wealth and show people the source, instead of being such a stingy prick about it.

Of course … it’s your code, you own the rights, you can do with it whatever you want.

I just think it’s rude to the developers of all the free software you’re using. If you don’t want to share your project, then don’t even bother posting the program in this form. It’s just a waste of web space.

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