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)
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