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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Anybody up to writing good directory software?
Tue, 2007-02-20 11:17 — David JonathanSince the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Is better education the key to finding better software?
Sat, 2007-03-03 03:25 — Edward RusselI read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
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TDTwister
1 year 40 weeks 3 days 14 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
1 year 40 weeks 3 days 2 hours ago
The Free Software Definition
spanky
1 year 40 weeks 3 days 11 hours ago
Confusion abounds
@trombone
The GNU project is a social project, not a technical one. Read.
can.axis
1 year 40 weeks 3 days 1 hour 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
1 year 40 weeks 3 days 5 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
1 year 40 weeks 2 days 5 hours 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.