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Do you have a right to privacy of your source code?

cstanton

As an individual, if you write a program and share the binary of that, should the expectancy be that you share its source code?

You might not want to share the source code, for example, you can very easily be judged based on that source code, both professionally and personally.

I've known people purposefully not post their code on Git Hub because they know employers will scrutinize and judge it, and in fact others observe how many 'regular commits' you do. Whether or not such judgment is fair is out of scope, but it's certainly something that's in the public eye at that point.

So perhaps you release a compiled binary because you want to help, but you don't want to invite conversations about the code, make it publicly displayed, or maybe there are other reasons.

However, someone comes along, decompiles the binary, reverse engineers it with ida pro, and releases the source code - citing that they have every right to do that, and now everyone can see the code, even though it's against your wishes.

Who was in the wrong? Or was no one in the wrong? Does it go to copyright since there was no license? Or was there an implied license?

There certainly appears to be a strong sense of justice among those online, that insists "it's just code" and "there's a right to transparency".

But there feels like there's something here that may not stand up to this scrutiny and this cavalier attitude of someone's work. Comparatively in the art world, someone creates a piece of art, and recently those components are being re-used in the case of AI (stable diffusion) and there's an uproar, but aren't they just laying the components bare? Maybe the analogy doesn't quite fit, but it certainly feels like for some reason code, by some, is treat differently to other mediums. Even though there are patents, copyrights, licenses, etc.

It could be difficult or even impossible for an individual to do something about this without financial backing, too. Especially compared to companies.

What do you think?

Edit: If you're picking up on spelling errors rather than the topic and context of the post, you're easily distracted. ;)

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  • If someone reverse compiles your binary they are in the wrong, especially if they go and commercialize it or distribute it against your wishes.  I don't know what the law says but in terms of ethics the person disassembling and disseminating is more at fault than the one not releasing the source code.  That's what I believe anyway.

  • in reply to dang74

    Some bits are a grey area for sure. So many scenarios, e.g. people deliberately sitting on firmware with no updates for users, going out of business, etc. Also reverse-engineering can be illegal anyway, depending on circumstances. The EU had a very nice rule (I'm calling it a rule, technically known as a "Directive", that member states must implement), that reverse-engineering was totally legal if it was necessary for interfacing to equipment, however manufacturers were worried people would accidentally or accidentally-on-purpose find out secret stuff during the exercise of that legal right, so they worked around it by supplying interfacing information in (say) paid manuals (which means it is no longer _necessary_ to reverse engineer, since you can buy the manuals, so now you've lost your right to that reverse-engineering). Anyway after a few years that rule was got rid of, I believe (but not sure) due to manufacturer pressure.

    I think it's unethical deliberately bypassing software protection to try to "unlock" software. That's not the same as trying to keep old firmware running when the manufacturer has gone bust for instance. So many people seem to think that the software is free and they try to kid themselves that no-one is losing out, whereas (from experience as a software engineer!) it certainly has huge costs to a business when people do that.

  • in reply to shabaz

    I can completely understand the incentive in your first two examples where the company goes out of business or fails to release firmware updates.  The underlying principle probably still applies though and it still wouldn't be right to disassemble the code.

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