How to protect a yii2 application from theft when working with freelancers?

Question

Yii

Hello, I have a question. I ordered the development of a web application in yii2, something like a simple crm. And now the question arose of improvements, and the search for specialists for this task. And as I understand it, any programmer to whom I will give access to the program can easily copy it and then do whatever he wants with it: sell, upload and open access, etc. is it possible to protect yourself from this?

Answer 1

At 99% you don't have anything there that could be sold or impossible to write again for the same price.
In addition to customer contacts, which are in the database, and access to which you restrict.

Answer 2

Archive the source code, password-protect, burn it to a disk, bury the disk in the garden and not tell anyone where, erase all copies.
Subject: The Elusive Joe.

Answer 3

Nobody needs your CMS for free, believe me. Customers are the only value. they can actually be stolen and sold.

Answer 4

Non-disclosure subscription. In the event of a leak, at least you can sue.

Answer 5

Actually, you can. The method is called - source code encryption.
You can encrypt part of the core business logic to a specific ip/domain and give the freelancer access to the dev server. If you choose the right pieces of code, then this will not hinder development much. And no one will sit and decode it, because fuck it.
There are a lot of crafts in this area, I personally came across only ionCube.