What really wories me is Microsoft getting the FAT patent. Although U.S. software patents don't apply here, it could lead to FAT support being dropped from a great number of Linux distros (if not all, I'm putting my hope on Ubuntu as it's african). This would mean a great deal to mp3 player/digital camera etc. compatibility under Linux

--edit--

Hmm, Ubuntu and the patents of IBM and it's counterparts available to open source community. There might be something there that Microsoft will want to use.

The applicable law allows for reverse engineering.

$.02

The picture and the encrypted picture is yours. I have the vague idea that sniffing your own traffic is legal and this was how the NetBIOS protocols were figured out to produce Samba...

Quoting from http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/SambaIntro.html
On the not-so-much-philosophical side (ie, common sense), anything you buy is yours and there should not be a limit on usability. Companies still enjoy this non-sense facism because of people's complacence. The only way to rewrite these laws is to illustrate the many cases by which the people lose, so the only way is to cross the sometimes vague boundaries of the law in order to define it. Fortunately, those who break the codes are seen as Robin Hood's. The only pitfall of this kind of attitude is legal backslash, so you must watch your step. Either you take the "legal" way as a personal and professional challenge, or you test the law. The law is there to exercise it... I'm not encouraging you to "break the law", however. Previous meditation on this subject is another good part of this challenge as well.

The limit on usability is, I believe, restricted by copyright. The code has been copyrighted and so reverse engineering the code and then using that code in another program would, in the opinion of the lawyers who wrote the license agreement, be a violation of the license. It is the same argument as the written word. I buy a book but I can't copy sections of the text verbatim in my own work. In the written work I am permitted to quote sections of text but I must properly acknowledge the quote and it should be used within the context of an argument that I am proposing. The closest analogy to this in programming, that I can think of, is the calling of a function in a published library.

However where the grey area arises is the reverse engineering, not of the code, but of the input output. That is the input is a bitmap picture, the output is the encoded picture and if I can show that I have written code to transform one to the other without the assistance of the source code then people will argue that is legally acceptable.

I'm no lawyer (as stated previously) my personal view is that the second form of reverse engineering is perfectly fair, I also believe that companies should have the right to copyright source code but that the length of copyright should be considerably shorter than it is for the written text, I would say something like three years.

graeme.

It is good to remember that anyone can put anything down on paper, lawyer or not. Lawyers can just make it sound real good. What a court will uphold is a completely different story.. and when you let writing on a piece of paper rule your life in a way that affects how you use in your own home, somthing that you bought with your own money.. well i will just leave it at that person has a lot to learn about the world..

I do not think that any court would uphold any form of punishment for usage of reversing somthing for your own knowlege and usage, with not monentary or political gain involved. if this claim is to be made I would have to see some documents that says that anyone has every been prosecuted successfully for reversing without personal gain.. before i would believe it anyhow.. it should be know that I am not a lawyer, but have been in enough *situations* (not computer related) to know that *the man* is always going to try to have his way.. and for you to accept it without question would be a/your biggest mistake..

and I agree with primo's points and also to add.. i would have to believe that many of the apps that we use on linux have not been built by just imagining how they work.. but instead have been reversed..

Ok well this is touch. Yes its illegal in a way. Actually this is put in EULA to scare you more then be a real deterrant. Basicly it works this way.

It is NOT illegal to reverse engineer a software binary that you have purchased a licence to use. The copyright is on the code that was used to create the binary. So thus tearing it apart and looking at it is not illeagal if it were illeagal then decompilers would be illeagal. anyway. what is illeagal is to use that code in another software product that you intend to distruibute or develop. or use information gained from decompileing it to develop another software product. So basicly what you are allowed to do is create a pice of software that you can use personally but will not be able to share give or sell to any other indevidual for any purpose. this includes acedemic purposes as well.


for what you intend based on your message then I would say for that purpose it will be illeagal.


This information I actaully learned when working with microsoft and there EULA. :P

good luck

so I could technically reverse engineer the iTunes code, for my own personal use? Could I then use that information that I gleaned to write something for GTKPod? or would that be considered illegal? Where to I find a decompiler?

I would say that reverse engineering for your own private purposes is okay, but as soon as you make that code available to others you would be walking along a very fine line. However the interesting point would be if you reverse engineered the code from that experience established the logic, explained the logic to a person who has never seen the code and get that person to code it.

Try here

graeme.

huh...there's a novel idea. I suppose then I could be considered an accomplice...I think I'll try it for my own use, or stay away from it all together....Thanks for the information everyone!

absolutely not.
There is a legal way to do it that involves the concept of "works like"
but is unique.

If you have never seen the code and you make up your own protocolls based on the way the thing behaves on the surface then implement those protocolls.
you have done nothing illegal at least as far as the software goes.

the important thing here is NEVER SEEN THE CODE !

which is why the SCO case against IBM is not as far off the mark as everybody pretends.

If you have seen the code then the new work is DERIVED FROM as in Linux is derived from Unix.

the thing is, how do you figure out the "act alike" stuff? If you've seen the code, the derivative is illegal, withough explicit permission from the copyright holder, correct?

yea mostly what should happen is these companies should be forced to openly share new hardware and software protocolls or people should not use their products.

there are people who can figure out whats going on i bet and also like oothers have said if you don't think it's immoral just do it and cover you tracks.

if you do think its immoral then don't do it.

too many laws and none of them enforced accept when you join a quaker war protest or something.

in a very real way when you use a decompiler the code isn't anything like the original at that point (mostly giberish) but can give you insight into a new aproach.

when you live in America you are actually required to break lots of laws every day and you don't even know it cause the laws are fascist and not in tune with actual right and wrong.

so the real question is is it imoral ?

I won't get prosecuted for being immoral though. Personally, I don't think allowing for open use of any code is immoral. However, since it's currently(and most likely will stay)illegal, I don't want to get in trouble. If there was an iTunes for linux, I'd just use that, even though the source is closed. However, since there isn't, I think it falls upon someone to provide full functionality, and since Apple won't...someone else needs to.

Basically, I don't want to get into legal trouble if I do this.

>> in a very real way when you use a decompiler the code isn't anything like the original at that point (mostly giberish) but can give you insight into a new aproach.

well of course the code is not the original HLL code that it was written in.. Its not gibberish, it is decompiled assembly.. which is not pretty but is *far* from gibberish.. I dont think the point of the non reversing clauses is to keep you from seeing the *code* exactly... rather it is to keep you from
1. altering the program
2. accessing innerworkings of algorithms that are supposed to be closed source
3. breaking protections to steal the software (ex shareware, trialware.. etc..)
4. unlocking features that are supposed to be locked until you have a key..
5. excercising basic freedoms that you inherit from purchasing a product

The reversing clauses came about because of one reason, the warez world. The stealing of software has caused companies to say "lets stop it by stopping reversing".. which sounds good, but if someone is stealing the program to begin with why would they care about the EULA? Im sure alot of crack groups read the EULA and give up on cracking that product because of the no reversing clause.. yeh right!

There is plenty of legitimate reversing that is done not for crack distribution but for knowlege, and also much reversing has been done to progress opensource works.. What ms/linux was asking would have to be considered a *legitimate* use.. number one the product was paid for, and number two you are not getting anything that would otherwise cost money.. I still see no problem.. EULA, lawyer, facisim, or whatever..

After following this thread for days now.. I would have to say that Nike's slogan is what would apply here..