[bee_rider]

I think we must have some software in use for which the compiler or the source code just isn’t around anymore. It probably isn’t a massive problem. There’s just a slow trickle of tech we can’t economically reproduce, but we replace it with better stuff. Or, if it was really crucial, it would become worth paying for, right?

[0cf8612b2e1e]

There was a story where Microsoft patched a program for which they likely lost the source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-ap...

[Lammy]

Complete speculation: They might not have had it in the first place or might not have had legal license to modify it themselves. The About Box shown in the article implies Microsoft just licensed MathType from Design Sciences, Inc. DSI got acquired by WIRIS just a few months before that in 2017 which may also have had something to do with it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MathType

[skissane]

I think with advances in AI-assisted decompilation, we may soon end up in the situation where given a binary you can produce realistic-looking source (sane variable and function names, comments even) which compiles to the same binary, even though non-identical to the original source code

[bee_rider]

Could be, although I don’t think that’ll give them any more HDL to train on (unless they also get access to a whole lot of high end microscopes!)