Greetings.
Ever since I heard about open-source source software, I had a question as to how can a piece of software remain completely discreet in its internal functioning even while being present on a computer?
In simple words, all the files of the software are present on the computer, so why can’t the source-code of it be *extracted* in some way?
If that is not possible, then how come crackers/patchers *crack* a software to function without a license? (Because I reckon they would need access to the code in order to modify its functioning.)
Thanks in advance.
In: Technology
I’ll put it this way: think of open-sourced programs like a bakery that lets the customers look at its recipes, and closed-sourced programs like a bakery that doesn’t.
You can’t just rename a source code file to an .exe and expect it to run the same way you can’t expect to bite into a recipe and have it taste like bread. It has to be compiled first.
And after it’s been compiled, trying to extract the code from a compiled program is like trying to extract individual ingredients from a loaf of bread. The compilation process transforms the human-readable code into a usable form, just like the baking process transforms the ingredients into an edible form.
Edit: And while I don’t entirely know how cracking works, they don’t have to reverse-engineer the entire program; just the protection mechanism. Think of it like picking a lock, as opposed to rebuilding an entire house.
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