Comment by jonhohle | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonhohle | Hacker News Reader

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I’ve been working on decomp project for the past two years that was started three years before I joined. I stream and try to teach the skills four days a week on twitch and YouTube.

You know what people learn when they vibe code a decomp? How LLMs work.

If I come across a hacker news front page story, I want it to be something interesting about a topic. Seeing a topic I’m deeply familiar with actually be another vibe coding project is exhausting and click bait. I can’t learn anything more about what I was trying to learn about in the first place.

Publishing this on GitHub is actively harmful to the RE and decomp communities. Vibe coders don’t care and probably don’t even know. They haven’t talked to the EFF, read USPCO opinions on fair use, followed VGHF’s attempts to expand rights, or anything that will legally move the needle forward. They’re just dumping mountains of copyright infringement under terms previously associated with completely legal activity.

This is totally fair, and I did learn a lot about agentic development which was my main goal (aside from playing F-Zero X on 3DS). I mean no harm to the community and my attempt is earnest. I learned a few things about the 3DS and N64 architectures and while it's cursory, it was still interesting.

As far as I could tell, this project was legitimately offering rendering techniques not yet used in N64 to 3DS ports, and I felt this documentation might be helpful.

I actually do care very much and would like to actively avoid harming the community. Any sort of resources out there to educate myself further would be appreciated.

You're not harming the community. Don't let these negative voices stop you.

You sure did provide a convincing counter-argument

Talk to the EFF or read what they’ve written, read USPCO opinions on fair use related to LLMs, read the petitions VGHF has made for supporting modern ways to play retro games; exactly what said in my original comment.

I do apologize however. I inferred from the repo that the decomp was done by LLM, but I’m glad to see it seems like an older, pre-LLM decomp.

I have mixed feelings about modern LLM implementations of older game SDKs, but generally support it. Though copyright and licensing there can be tricky as well. Caveat emptor.

Having read some of what this project had to do to fit 3DS, if you think “the only thing learned was how to use LLMs” then I don’t know what to say to you other than...are you sure about that?

You can still enjoy doing things the way you always did. Nothing is stopping you from continuing to enjoy your hobby.

I've wanted to do this but had no time to learn this arcane science. Life is simply too short.

This is opening the world up to more people. You shouldn't be mad at them for coming into your hobby.

People want this. They shouldn't have to do it the way you bless or anoint.

Decomp.dev shut down, Activision and others going after vibe coded mods chilling legitimate projects, destruction of clean room practices, lost time due to slop contributions of dubious legality.

Your perspective is like saying LLMs have had no impact on mathematicians. Or dirt bikes don’t have impact on hiking trails.

I don't think we're going to agree on this.

Electricity shut down hunting whales for oil, cars shut down horse whip makers, etc. That's just progress. Like shopping malls, Blockbuster, buffet restaurants -- everything has its time.

There are more games being decompiled now than ever before, and the leap in accessibility is tremendous. While this may dilute your community and its practices, and while it may look like an Eternal September, it is bringing orders of magnitude more people into the fold. And that's worth a lot more than you're giving it credit.

Math, science, bio, and certainly CS and software engineering are going to change. That's progress. Nothing should stay the same forever.

I'm happier to see the world morph into something exciting during my lifetime rather than have slow and modest progress up until I die. I feel a bit like the people who were born early enough to witness the Wright brothers and who ultimately lived to see people walk on the moon. I'm glad tech is doing something like that rather than just having decades of uninspiring incrementalism.

I'm sorry you don't share the same outlook, but I promise there's a silver lining in this if you look more closely.

People are going to get closer and closer to owning their technology. The value of code is plummeting, and that means that in time these claims over our software will erode to nothing.

I would focus your energy on making sure we have open weights parity with the foundation models. We need to have a seat at that table. That is the real threat to our freedom and future, not petty IP squabbles or software rights.

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