Quote of the day by software pioneer Eric S. Raymond: "The end of software secrecy is almost upon us"
The legendary software developer has cast his verdict on proprietary software following a string of surprising incidents
Software pioneer Eric S. Raymond, known as ESR, has recently declared the end of software secrecy, citing the rise of artificial intelligence. In a recent post on X, ESR shared how an experiment using AI to decompile and port an old game to a new format sparked his realization that this technique could be applied to large, complex software programs.
He noted that even AAA games, among the most intricate software artifacts, can now be decompiled, suggesting that virtually anything can be. This revelation implies that the secrecy moat surrounding software is no longer impenetrable, with cloud-enabled software becoming increasingly difficult to reverse engineer. The only way for the industry to maintain secrecy might now be through hiding executables behind Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) shields.
While ESR believes closed-source software may eventually be wiped out in a technological upheaval, he acknowledges that certain laws might prevent the mass decompilation of binaries. This perspective aligns with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's recent comment that "AI is going to eat software," following his 2017 assertion that "software is eating the world."
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