Originally Posted by mulesh
Yes, that is correct. I honestly have no idea how the WoW client "reads" this blather or what it actually "does". Very questionable, if you ask me.
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Lua is semi-interpreted, which means textual code is actually compiled into bytecode on the fly before it is run within the Lua virtual machine. The ability to run pre-compiled Lua is part of the standard Lua runtime and I guess was included into WoW Lua engine. Apart from the small performance increase by direct interpretation of the bytecode (see it like a Just-In-Time type of virtual machine) like someone said this is mostly code obfuscation. However you can use reversible encryption to retrieve the actual bytecode. This is just like people who distribute encrypted Visual Basic scripts (VBE) thinking they are hiding their code.
Next question to the admins then: did you guys decompiled the bytecode, put the pieces back together and checked what exactly the addon code is and what it does? Or is the license not allowing you to do so (even as the distributor and not the end-user)?