I don't see why you would want to really do this. Is there a reason besides that you just don't want the source getting out or because of other reasons? Or are you just doing it to protect the work you've put into a plugin? In the long run I'm sure it will just end up being a pain to do, with few (if any) advantages to you. I recommend just open sourcing it. This community is great at checking others source code and finding bugs and improving plugin quality. If you are really wanting to obfuscate it, I would recommend looking into JBCO.
Ok so lets think about this properly, you think of good plugin idea then a kid copies your source code. You then decide you are going to obsfucate your source code, which is all good then someone else decides "hey i should do this too just to be safe"... 1 month later everyones plugins are no longer open source, the bukkit staff decide to obsfucate the api because they think mojang might copy them.... No more plugins for anyone except the staff because we cant use the api I know this will never happen but when your in a community that is fully opensource you shouldnt even suggest any sort of thing thats stops people viewing your code
It's because I have made some plugins for my own server and then shared them with my friend, who then thought about publishing my plugin under his name, which would be no problem with open-source. But if I obfuscate it I can include a "watermark" that he can't change. I don't care if people like my plugins and want to use them, but people trying to take credit for my work annoys me. For now I have just encrypted my strings (rot13 lol, he's a skid, he wouldn't figure out what the function does that I use on all weird looking strings even though the function is at the bottom of the same class, lol) which works so far that even if he decided to take credit I could out him as having no idea what the encrypted strings do.
Well, obfuscating Java is near useless, as you can almost always recover the source in this or that form. You can just release it under BSD license so that everyone must state your name when distributing. And sue your friend :3
If your plugin has a license and your friend is breaking it, just send some professional emails to the server hosts and any file hosts who have download links for it, showing your license and that they are breaking international copyright laws. 99% of web hosts will remove the file quickly.
Is there some fancy license that also disallows modification? I just looked at some copyright law stuff. Do I understand it right that at the moment I create something, I am the legal copyright owner? And also, modifying or distributing my work without my permissions is also illegal? Please correct me if I'm wrong. EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
You're the copyright owner, but if I understand what people have told me about the GPL correctly, if you distribute the compiled version, you must provide the source.