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    SubjectReverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario)
    Lee Revell wrote:
    > On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:41 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
    >
    >>Lee Revell wrote:
    >>
    >>>On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
    >>>
    >>>>Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one team
    >>>>write a document, and a totally separate team write the driver from
    >>>>that document.
    >>
    >>>Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO
    >>>to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a
    >>>driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original driver?
    >>
    >>It's still legally shaky. The "Chinese wall" approach I described above
    >>is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be.
    >
    >
    > I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two? As long
    > as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
    > indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.

    The _potential_ for problems is very high:

    1) [ref Alan's email] copying programming sequences

    2) Lack of Chinese wall requires TRUST and EVIDENCE that you did the
    rev-eng without "source code that fell off the back of a truck" [i.e.
    illegally obtained] or "docs that fell off the back of a truck."

    3) Lack of Chinese wall increases the likelihood that a SCOX or other
    entity could use that as a legal weapon against Linux.

    In Linux, I really have no way of knowing how questionable a driver
    submission is, if it did not arrive from the Chinese wall approach, or a
    known hacker with a valid path to hardware docs/engineers/code. Past
    experience shows that Mr. Unknown Hacker is likely to take legal
    shortcuts when writing the driver.

    If I accept code of highly questionable origin, then I put Linux in
    jeopardy.

    Jeff


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