When you buy software, the source code usually is not made public, but doesn’t your computer still have to run the code to use the software? How can it run the code without allowing the user to see the code?

Question

When you buy software, the source code usually is not made public, but doesn’t your computer still have to run the code to use the software? How can it run the code without allowing the user to see the code?

In: Technology

Answer 1

The software you buy is in machine code, not the human-readable programming language that you might be familiar with. While software is written in a programming language, it has to be converted to machine code (the term is ‘compiled’) for it to actually run. Machine code can be read directly by your computer’s CPU. I feel like people tend to go overboard with the explanations on this one.