The whole advantage to free software is that you can take it apart and look at it, right? That is what most free software advocates would have you believe. So what would happen if the GNU Project released a Perfect Decompiler, a decompiler that could perfectly decode any binary into source code understandable by humans? Would this help or hurt the Free Software Movement?
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TDTwister
14 years 7 weeks 1 day 23 hours ago
Yes but ...
First of all your idea defeat the purpose of free software since viewing and changing the source code is one of the freedoms but not (In my opinion) the most important one. Although this is nearly impossible in most of the cases you can be forbidden to so by the license. The problem with proprietary software is not that they can not be decompile is that they do not respect their users freedom. So the problem with proprietary software has nothing to do with the source code.
can.axis
14 years 7 weeks 1 day 11 hours ago
The Free Software Definition
spanky
14 years 7 weeks 1 day 20 hours ago
Confusion abounds
@trombone
The GNU project is a social project, not a technical one. Read.
can.axis
14 years 7 weeks 1 day 10 hours ago
gnu and the fsf
IMO, people make confusion between FSF and GNU. To quote RMS, the free software movement is a political cause, not a technical one, but GNU is not the Free Software Foundation. GNU is certainly a social project in that the goal is to eliminate nonfree software, and thus a social problem, but hacking free software alternatives is a technical one...
For more information, see: gnu, gnome, and the fsf...
trombonechamp
14 years 7 weeks 1 day 14 hours ago
@'s
@TDTwister: Did you read the article? tl;dr - A perfect decompiler would hurt the free software movement
@spanky: See http://www.gnu.org/
TDTwister
14 years 7 weeks 14 hours 29 min ago
Yes I have.....
Its a very nice article apart from reducing the free software movement into a technical and a legal problem. Quoting: "This just goes to show the importance of finding the source cause of a problem. It would seem (and many assume) that the root dilemma of the Free Software Movement is the inability to access the source code of all software. In reality, though, the problem is about the legal inability to deal with such source code. Free software advocates advocate using free software for reasons involving read access to the source code, but rarely touch on the most basic concepts of true freedom."
And no it is not the legal implications that are the problem is the social implications that legal issues oppose. Social issues have little to do with the source code. It has to do with the ability to use and share software in freedom.