Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool

Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by tptacek on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @09:50PM (#19316065)

Another way to think about it is that if any piece of professional software should cost a lot, a super-specialized piece of software that is hard to duplicate, is a near industry standard, and is used almost exclusively by people with high bill rates should be expensive. But again, my point is: IDA costs a lot less than its place in the market suggests it should.

I'm not arguing that a capable free alternative is a bad thing. I think there's an industry business case study in what Hex-Rays could have done to keep this from happening, though.

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by pcwalton on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @10:59PM (#19316299)

> I think there's an industry business case study in what Hex-Rays could have done to keep this from happening, though.

Is the fact that Hex-Rays is Russian one of the reasons why Ghidra exists? (Honest question.) If so, is there anything they could have done differently?

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by gruez on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @11:42PM (#19316447)

AFAIK the author is Russian but lives in Belgium

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by yaps8 on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @12:58AM (#19316677)

Hex-Rays is in Belgium.

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by smokeyj on Tuesday March 05, 2019 @10:23PM (#19316174)

> But again, my point is: IDA costs a lot less than its place in the market suggests it should.

Sounds like every developer working on an open source stack.

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by justinjlynn on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @03:24AM (#19317234)

Well, now the market is saying that such a tool should be open sourced and well, now it is.

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by pbhjpbhj on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @04:37AM (#19317565)

I wouldn't say the market is doing that, government funded tool being released as FOSS is opposite to "the market".

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by justinjlynn on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @06:07AM (#19318008)

Yeah, but it is the market - it's just not a perfect market; you know, the kind that can't exist.

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by pbhjpbhj on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @07:11AM (#19318279)

No, "the market" means financial considerations created an opportunity that was fulfilled to generate profit. It could be that the economy gained via this FOSS release, and that was part of the consideration, but that would be structural interference by the government (which can be a good thing IMO) working in opposition to the market.

Market forces are often reined in, eg by human rights, those things aren't part of the market operating they're mitigations of the damaging effects. In this case it's an external force (gov action), not the market, that has created the availability of the product.

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Re:Ghidra, NSA's reverse-engineering tool by debatem1 on Wednesday March 06, 2019 @12:49PM (#19320916)

Hmm? Large customer of leading widget manufacturer decides to make its own widgets in-house instead and keep the build minus buy money (plus possibly getting a better widget). Totally normal market practice.

Large player in widget market has low marginal cost and deep pockets, sells widgets at marginal cost its competitors can't match. Also totally normal market practice.

Competitors exit market or are relegated to minor market share, leaving de facto sole survivor. Also totally normal market practice.

We could be talking about chrome just as easily as IDA pro here.

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