9 ms·

The main point here is that they acquired a license for the software with explicit purpose reverse engineering the language, even though the license forbid that

by jVinc 9y ago

The main point here is that they acquired a license for the software with explicit purpose reverse engineering the language, even though the license forbid that. If they had "just" implemented a clone without getting a licence from SAS, then they likely wouldn't be in trouble. "Is it forbidden for US citizens to create NVIDIA CUDA clones now" No, but if you download a free piece of software with a license that forbids you from using it to create a clone of NVIDIA CUDA, and you agree to the license and you do just that... well then you breach the license you agreed to. It's not a blanket ban on every case of reverse engineering, just a case of WPL shooting themselves in the foot in an obvious manor.

testvox 9y ago
How do you produce a CUDA clone if you can't explore any CUDA implementations or read any CUDA specs without first obtaining a licence.
- kazinator 9y ago
  You get someone else to obtain that license and produce a detailed requirement specification which they then sort of leak in your direction. You then "clean room" implement, without having seen any original documentation or worked with the original device or software. That someone else is not connected in any way; i.e. you are not both subsidiaries of the same company, etc. E.g. your manager's uncle has a friend who works in some company where they have a CUDA license; arrangements are made and things are procured. The requirement specification is not traceable to a particular CUDA license key; there is nothing that can be proven about the identity of the source.
phil21 9y ago
So you're just saying it's effectively illegal to reverse engineer pretty much anything. So long as the company in question put a magical paragraph of text in their EULA? I just don't buy this. There is literally no way to build a CUDA clone without testing output against both your clone and CUDA itself. With this reading, EULA's have effectively banned cloning any form of software.
- RhodesianHunter 9y ago
  This is very similar to the dilema of drug manufacturers and generics to me. On one hand without a strong financial incentive you won't have big companies investing in the original pieces of software. On the other hand at a certain point it becomes a monopoly with a negative societal impact.
  - philipkglass 9y ago
    Drug manufacturers get patents and a corresponding period of exclusivity. This is worse than patents in some ways because there's no time limit. It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation even after the relevant patents expire.
    - tossaway1 9y ago
      Copyright does have a time limit. In the US, I believe the work just had to be older than Steamboat Willie.
    - uxp 9y ago
      I don't buy this. "It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation _even after_ the relevant patents expire." You've gone from "Drug manufacturers get patents and a period of exclusivity" to "Patent and exclusivity, and also protection from generics for the brand's life", but patents can be applied for at any time during a drugs development, including before it's ever been synthesized (e.g., theoretical manufacture via computer models) but the exclusivity is only a U.S. FDA marketing feature. Patents on a drug could expire before the exclusivity, so a competing manufacturer could create a secondary brandname drug and sell it overseas during that period. I'm really confused as to where this EULA would even fit in, since you've just moved the goalposts with your "even after" clause. If the FDA had some kind of deterministic human trial of a drug, like some dystopian lab-grown identical human clones, of which drugs were trialled on and some company B was able to obtain a set of these clones from company A that had some kind of defect of which the drug was targeting as a cure or remedy for, and then used those proprietary clone models in order to test their clone drug against, we might have some kind of metaphor worth arguing against, but we don't.
Phrodo_00 9y ago
However, there's another decision that doesn't seat with me either. US Copyright lay says: > person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs Courts have generally chosen that a EULA clause can override this provision of the law, which seems pretty backwards to me, especially considering that the validity of shrink-wrap licenses hasn't been established very firmly (although I'm not sure about the nature of the EULA in this case)
- kazinator 9y ago
  Even so, simply running the program as a blackbox and comparing whether your own program produces the same behavior does not constitute "access to a particular portion of that program for the ... purpose of identifying and analyzing ... elements that are necessary to achieve interoperability". That text is clearly referring to peeking at the code. The external behavior of a program isn't an access-controlled portion of the program. Only the code can be that. Access controls are tricks like basic compilation of source into machine code (and further obfuscation from that departure point such as run-time decryption of code sections, requiring execution to be controlled in a debugger to intercept the decrypted code), and the placement of a program as firmware onto a tamper-resistant chip.
Pyxl101 9y ago
Imagine I do the following: I contract a third party company to obtain a license of SAS, and use that license to produce a language specification. Producing a language specification surely is not reverse engineering on its own. I could equally well contract the company to undertake a rigorous security analysis of the language to look for vulnerabilities or defects. Neither of these companies needs to know how I'll use what they produce. It seems unreasonable to consider the act of producing documentation about a product's public interface behavior as "reverse engineering". Then, I use the language specification to build my own implementation. Is this permissible? If not, why not? Who is undertaking the act of reverse engineering prohibited by the license?
- derekp7 9y ago
  This is known as a clean room process. In this case, you would not be at fault as you aren't held to the terms of the license. However the company doing the documentation may be in trouble, if the license forbids them to document the program functionality.
  - mjevans 9y ago
    I don't feel like that should be something which /could/ get you in to trouble in a legal system focused on the good of the public.
shmerl 9y ago
It's really improper for some license to forbid reverse engineering to begin with. They already are protected by copyright. Re-implementing something with reverse engineering should be perfectly legal.

by jVinc 9y ago

testvox 9y ago

How do you produce a CUDA clone if you can't explore any CUDA implementations or read any CUDA specs without first obtaining a licence.

kazinator 9y ago
You get someone else to obtain that license and produce a detailed requirement specification which they then sort of leak in your direction. You then "clean room" implement, without having seen any original documentation or worked with the original device or software. That someone else is not connected in any way; i.e. you are not both subsidiaries of the same company, etc. E.g. your manager's uncle has a friend who works in some company where they have a CUDA license; arrangements are made and things are procured. The requirement specification is not traceable to a particular CUDA license key; there is nothing that can be proven about the identity of the source.

phil21 9y ago

So you're just saying it's effectively illegal to reverse engineer pretty much anything. So long as the company in question put a magical paragraph of text in their EULA? I just don't buy this. There is literally no way to build a CUDA clone without testing output against both your clone and CUDA itself. With this reading, EULA's have effectively banned cloning any form of software.

RhodesianHunter 9y ago
This is very similar to the dilema of drug manufacturers and generics to me. On one hand without a strong financial incentive you won't have big companies investing in the original pieces of software. On the other hand at a certain point it becomes a monopoly with a negative societal impact.
- philipkglass 9y ago
  Drug manufacturers get patents and a corresponding period of exclusivity. This is worse than patents in some ways because there's no time limit. It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation even after the relevant patents expire.
  - tossaway1 9y ago
    Copyright does have a time limit. In the US, I believe the work just had to be older than Steamboat Willie.
  - uxp 9y ago
    I don't buy this. "It's like drug manufacturers could attach a EULA to their pills that makes reverse-engineering a competing product a legally enforceable contract violation _even after_ the relevant patents expire." You've gone from "Drug manufacturers get patents and a period of exclusivity" to "Patent and exclusivity, and also protection from generics for the brand's life", but patents can be applied for at any time during a drugs development, including before it's ever been synthesized (e.g., theoretical manufacture via computer models) but the exclusivity is only a U.S. FDA marketing feature. Patents on a drug could expire before the exclusivity, so a competing manufacturer could create a secondary brandname drug and sell it overseas during that period. I'm really confused as to where this EULA would even fit in, since you've just moved the goalposts with your "even after" clause. If the FDA had some kind of deterministic human trial of a drug, like some dystopian lab-grown identical human clones, of which drugs were trialled on and some company B was able to obtain a set of these clones from company A that had some kind of defect of which the drug was targeting as a cure or remedy for, and then used those proprietary clone models in order to test their clone drug against, we might have some kind of metaphor worth arguing against, but we don't.

Phrodo_00 9y ago

However, there's another decision that doesn't seat with me either. US Copyright lay says: > person who has lawfully obtained the right to use a copy of a computer program may circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a particular portion of that program for the sole purpose of identifying and analyzing those elements of the program that are necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs Courts have generally chosen that a EULA clause can override this provision of the law, which seems pretty backwards to me, especially considering that the validity of shrink-wrap licenses hasn't been established very firmly (although I'm not sure about the nature of the EULA in this case)

kazinator 9y ago
Even so, simply running the program as a blackbox and comparing whether your own program produces the same behavior does not constitute "access to a particular portion of that program for the ... purpose of identifying and analyzing ... elements that are necessary to achieve interoperability". That text is clearly referring to peeking at the code. The external behavior of a program isn't an access-controlled portion of the program. Only the code can be that. Access controls are tricks like basic compilation of source into machine code (and further obfuscation from that departure point such as run-time decryption of code sections, requiring execution to be controlled in a debugger to intercept the decrypted code), and the placement of a program as firmware onto a tamper-resistant chip.

Pyxl101 9y ago

Imagine I do the following: I contract a third party company to obtain a license of SAS, and use that license to produce a language specification. Producing a language specification surely is not reverse engineering on its own. I could equally well contract the company to undertake a rigorous security analysis of the language to look for vulnerabilities or defects. Neither of these companies needs to know how I'll use what they produce. It seems unreasonable to consider the act of producing documentation about a product's public interface behavior as "reverse engineering". Then, I use the language specification to build my own implementation. Is this permissible? If not, why not? Who is undertaking the act of reverse engineering prohibited by the license?

derekp7 9y ago
This is known as a clean room process. In this case, you would not be at fault as you aren't held to the terms of the license. However the company doing the documentation may be in trouble, if the license forbids them to document the program functionality.
- mjevans 9y ago
  I don't feel like that should be something which /could/ get you in to trouble in a legal system focused on the good of the public.

shmerl 9y ago

It's really improper for some license to forbid reverse engineering to begin with. They already are protected by copyright. Re-implementing something with reverse engineering should be perfectly legal.