Every app is now open source, whether it likes it or not?
15 October 2026
"Every app on Earth is now open source … whether it likes it or not." That is how an Instagram post begins that I saved for the blog this week. Die KI Woche follows up: its article is simply called "Software is over".
The idea behind it: AI can translate finished programs back into readable code. Secret source code thus loses its value as a moat.
What is behind it
A finished program consists of machine code. The processor understands it, a human hardly does. Decompiling means turning it back into readable source code. That has always been possible, but it was tedious manual work for specialists, often over months.
What is new is the speed. Language models read machine code, name functions, explain connections and rewrite the code in a modern language. Die KI Woche gives examples: an Adobe suite rebuilt in Rust, and decompiled console games that run as a web app in the browser. How far these projects really are is not stated there. The direction is clear all the same.
Amjad Masad, head of the programming platform Replit, puts it even more bluntly: "Most software will go to zero." In other words, most software will be worth almost nothing.
Allowed is not the same as possible
There is a clean way for old software to become open: the manufacturer releases it. In February 2025, Electronic Arts put the source code of several Command & Conquer games on GitHub, under the open licence GPL v3. What can come of it is shown by OpenCNC3D: fans use it to bring the Nintendo 64 version to the PC.
Decompiling without permission is something else. In the EU, copyright law allows it only within narrow limits, for example so that programs can work together. Just because an AI can do something does not mean you are allowed to. Anyone who rebuilds other people's software should know this before publishing.
What this means for software
The code alone was never the whole product. It also includes:
- the data and content inside an application,
- the name and the trust of the customers,
- the operation: servers, updates, support,
- and the community that uses a tool and carries it forward.
If you live only from the fact that nobody can look into your code, you will have a harder time. If you do good work around the code, probably not.
My view on it
I am currently bringing old games into virtual reality myself. For this I use open engines and source code that the rights holders or the community have released. The game data comes from my own purchased copies. That is exactly why I see both sides: open code preserves gaming history. Code translated without asking raises new questions.
The AI delivers the code. Whether you may use it is shown by the licence.
Sources: Die KI Woche: Software is over · Instagram @sebastianhardy_ · Instagram @amjad_masad · EA: Command & Conquer Tiberian Dawn on GitHub