Re: CTL bug/implementation issue

Florian Kainz <[email protected]> Thu, 05 Jul 2007 15:16:43 -0700
Newsgroups gmane.comp.video.openexr.user
Message-ID <[email protected]>
gga wrote:
> On another note:
> 
> I haven't looked too deep into the CTL implementation yet, but...
> Is there currently any way to output bytecodes or, better yet, encode
> the ctl code?  One of the original discussions on this list mentioned
> that as a potential feature, so that, say, if ILM wanted to share data
> with me, I would be able to use their ctl files, but, at the same time,
> ILM could keep their proprietary color transforms secret (at least
> without me doing some serious reverse engineering).

Reverse engineering of usable high-level code from the bytecodes
would be fairly easy, especially given that the CTL interpreter
is open source.  You would have to write a reverse translator only
once; after that you could apply it to any number of transforms.
Supporting an unreadable execute-only representation in order to
protect trade secrets doesn't seem worth the effort; subverting
the protection would be all too easy.

If you want to protect your math, you may want to explicitly build
a lookup table and stick that into your .ctl program.