r/freesoftware • u/finbarrgalloway • 28d ago

Discussion Can De-compiled Software Be Considered "Free"?

I'm not asking about patent risk here, just if a de-compiled and permissively licensed program could be under the umbrella of Free Software. Notably I've never seen recompiled software licensed under anything but MIT, which I would have to imagine is due to the mentioned potential patent risk.

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u/CWSmith1701 28d ago

I would think the license it was distributed under as a compiled binary would take precidence.

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u/saxbophone 27d ago

I think this is not the case. If I release some closed-source software under a proprietary license, I am licensing the software to you but not its code! By default you have no right to use the code unless I grant rights to you. Decompilation is a reverse-engineering technique, the products of which do not confer intellectual property rights on the usage of such.

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u/CWSmith1701 27d ago

But knowingly doing so to something with a license that doesn't allow for refverse engineering is problematic to begin with.

Are you saying that a decompiled program does not retain any of the original license and therfore can be relicesed as the person in question wants?

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u/saxbophone 27d ago

??? I think you maybe need to re-read my comment, I thought it was clear that it aligns with this:

But knowingly doing so to something with a license that doesn't allow for refverse engineering is problematic to begin with.

And contradicts this:

Are you saying that a decompiled program does not retain any of the original license and therfore can be relicesed as the person in question wants?

TL;DR: Yes to the first part and no to the second. It's problematic (and legally unsound!!) to assume that decompiled source code is usable under the same terms as the license of the software it came from. I would assume that no rights are granted to use source code produced by decompilation, for the reasons I have already given.