[smoldesu]

Yep. The NSA was solving a universal problem (nobody wants to pay for IDA Pro licenses) and it makes more sense to pool their efforts with the community than to divide them. That, and it's also great PR. But mostly the first one, I reckon.

[SXX]

What worse before Ghidra was released it was actually damn hard to even buy IDA license and I not even sure if situation changed at all. I cant even imagine that someone can "secretly" buy an IDA license and it obvious thing that NSA would want to do.

I guess people who come up with conspiracy theories simply don't know that all around the world there might be like 10,000 good reverse engineering experts. Might be even less of them. It's very small talent pool and it does make sense for NSA to do everything to make hiring easier.

[secondcoming]

You can download a free version of IDA at [0]. It only supports x86/x64

[0]https://hex-rays.com/ida-free/#download