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by lrvick 941 days ago
People will de-compile proprietary software and GPL it, and others will have AI clone/port GPL code to new languages then back to the original language again to de-GPL code.

Overall this will make software copyright laws pointless, but in the end everything anyone cares about will be open source. I am here for this outcome.
1 comments
AshamedCaptain 941 days ago
Frankly I think you have a very rosy view. If this were to happen I foresee companies would immediately start treating code as if it was a private key, using ridiculous hardware protection mechanism, tivoization, SaaS, and the like as much as possible. The entire reason code is so accessible right now is because companies only care about making it "inconvenient" for home piracy, relying on the threat of legal action for everyone else. Imagine a world where if you don't do it then your competitors can legally use your software. Everyone who isn't already releasing their software under the BSD or PD would stop doing so since just about everyone else could just shamelessly rip it into their next closed as hell & secure boot'd device. Your "AI" would have zero source code to train on. Only the companies with the largest resources would be able to break the latest obfuscation mechanisms, leading to more effective imbalances in power. And on and on..

Mandating open software & open hardware is one thing, but simply removing copyright doesn't led there -- it leads to a even more dystopic world.

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lrvick 940 days ago
Show me a popular hardware platform that users get to hold in their hands whose users have not dumped the firmware, or at least the firmware decryption key as with virtually every drm solution in history.
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AshamedCaptain 939 days ago
I have multiple Samsung Qualcomm smartphones which to this day do not have an unlocked bootloader. Ironically one reason to choose the otherwise terrible Exynos.

And even on the ones which do, you lose access to some hardware features -- the very definition of tivoization...

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LocalH 939 days ago
Xbox One is probably the closest. I'm not aware of any Xbox One games being decrypted.
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