Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 9 Oct 1998 21:15:01 -0400 (EDT) | From | Kenneth Albanowski <> | Subject | Reverse engineering (was ...UDI...) |
| |
[There have been several statements along these lines. Here's just one of them:]
On Fri, 9 Oct 1998, Ely Wilson wrote:
> Does this mean that you in Europe could disassembler a binary, then modify > it so it reatins it's general function, email it to us americans modified > thus saving us the desparity of being prosecuted :) i think so. > > Also, federal laws protect patent/copyright. It is *NOT* forbidden to > dissassemble a source. Take a system BIOS for instance, to replicate a > BIOS you would do (and it HAS been done) a complete dissassemble, then > write down EVERYTHING it does, BUT NO CODE (yes I am leaving out details)
With respect, this was ages ago. (Compaq). A lot of water has passed under that bridge, and some more recent decisions have occurred that complicate matters. At least, as a layman, I believe matters have been complicated enough that I don't trust myself to judge safely what the current situation is -- and I'd advise others not to. If no-one actually knows for certain, I'd suggest that the FSF, or Redhat, or one of the other groups should retain council, pay a lawyer to try and determine the actual current status of reverse engineering in the US -- and then write this up for everyone's use.
(My rationale? The Stac vs. Microsoft decision. As I understood it, this determined that Stac misappropriated Microsoft's trade secrets by reverse engineering Microsoft's code. I don't understand this. Moreover, it is effectively a nonsense statement, according to my understanding of the definition of "trade secrets". Hence, I'm not going to trust anyone but a lawyer to determine what this actually means -- if anything.)
And, as others have said, WIPO potentially recomplicates this, and there have also been various copyright law modifications that may or may not have been enacted in the meantime (I've never managed to keep track of them).
I'm not trying to say that I know more about this topic then you, but rather I suspect that I _don't know enough_. This is not a game, and glib statements or half-remember recollections (including mine) are not sufficient.
On a personal level, for the free projects that I am involved with, which involve no great harm or monetary incentive to anyone, I treat reverse engineering "for the purposes of interfacing to existing hardware or software" as an acceptable practice, and my understanding is that the EU agrees with me. This is a matter of practicality, and I would not make this assumption for a commercial or large-scale project. And no, this not an excuse for anything, just a statement of my actions.
-- Kenneth Albanowski (kjahds@kjahds.com, CIS: 70705,126)
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |