I have had an influx of these game decomps on my Instagram recently and was wondering why so many were appearing out of nowhere. Shortly after that influx, the open-sourcing Adobe Suit thing happened and again its on my feed. Most of these projects use AI to make it easier to decomply these things and understand why it was used but I am a bit worried about the implications. As in, will these decomps actually be stable? Will they be maintained? Will companies start lobbying for AI laws harder now, in a way it benefits them and not us?
I personally stay away from AI due to the many issues AI brings but I am a fan of people fighting big companies but is this the way to do it?
From a copyright standpoint, distributing reverse-engineered code made by decompiling existing software is almost certainly illegal. If a person wanted to create an FOSS clone of some software, they would have to follow the ‘clean room’ process, and even that doesn’t save you from violating patents. Adobe and the other victims here have legal grounds to remove these projecs from the internet under dmca. Although AI companies seem to be able to ignore most laws these days.
If someone out there is actually looking for alternatives to corporate slopware, I would urge them to join the FOSS community where we build these things ourselves, rather than succumbing to the vibe sickness.