How do you protect code from leaking outside? [duplicate]

Answer 1

The code does not leak out on itself. It takes people to take it. There are obviously some security measures you might use like traffic analysis and lock-down on the repositories so only authorized developers can connect to it.

But by the end of the day your best option is to make sure that no one WANTS to steal from you. Your team has to be happy, they have to be proud to work for your they have to be loyal to the company and to each other. If you have such team it's a simple question of explaining to everyone that the code has to be protected from outsiders. It will not stop a dedicated mole but will prevent accidents.

P.S. And yes, proper clauses in the contracts would not harm as well, at least they will make sure that the developers are AWARE that taking code outside is morally wrong.

Answer 2

You can't stop it getting out. So two solutions - stop people wanting to hurt you, and have legal precautions. To stop people hating you treat them right (saying more is probably off topic for stack overflow).

I'm not a lawyer, but to give yourself legal protection, if you believe in it, patent the ideas, put a copyright notice in the code, and make sure the contracts for your programmers specify carefully intellectual property rights.

But at the end of the day, the answer is run quicker than the competition.