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It's a mess of copyright for sure. I doubt you could really exercise your rights as a 3rd party with the GPLv3 there. e.g. if Debian or Ubuntu were to include t

It's a mess of copyright for sure. I doubt you could really exercise your rights as a 3rd party with the GPLv3 there. e.g. if Debian or Ubuntu were to include the game then they would be on shakey ground for redistributing copyrighted stuff. Presumably the original graphics are in there too, not just the "re-imagined" code. It reminds me of the old New Kind - Oolite - Elite shenanigans from years ago. Somehow Oolite powered through and stuck around, despite using most of the New Kind code originally (they translated the C game logic to Objective C if memory serves me), while New Kind was shut down by Braben for copyright infringement. The New Kind author - Christian Pinder I think was his name - did all the disassembly work originally. I don't think it was ever a big legal challenge there, more like "hey! take that down" and the author complied because he was a nice guy.

vadfa 5y ago
It's not "a mess of copyright", it is simply illegal, in the same way that reverse engineering Windows to reimplement stuff in Wine would be illegal.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > reverse engineering Windows to reimplement stuff in Wine would be illegal That's legal though. Stuff like that is the whole purpose of reverse engineering. You can't copy the code but you can learn how it works so you can do it yourself.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    >but you can learn how it works so you can do it yourself This part is definitely illegal. You can learn how it works but you cannot write the code yourself, you have to write the specs for someone else to do it, who hasn't done the reverse engineering.
    - matheusmoreira 5y ago
      That's clean room reverse engineering, a rigorous method to make absolutely sure that the results are legal so it can't be questioned later. It's not a legal requirement and it does not prevent lawsuits. It just makes it more likely that the legal battle will be won.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - phendrenad2 5y ago
        I think GP is referring to the DMCA, which forbids reverse-engineering unless it's to understand how to interface your own code with something (although I'm not a lawyer).
        matheusmoreira 5y ago
        Yes, even under the DMCA it's totally legal to reverse engineer for the purposes of interoperability. Wine was created to make Windows applications work on Linux. I reverse engineered my laptop's crappy manufacturer software in order to make a Linux version.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  This isn’t illegal though? You can do clean room reimplementations
- LocalH 5y ago
  Reverse engineering isn't illegal, friend.

vadfa 5y ago

It's not "a mess of copyright", it is simply illegal, in the same way that reverse engineering Windows to reimplement stuff in Wine would be illegal.

matheusmoreira 5y ago
> reverse engineering Windows to reimplement stuff in Wine would be illegal That's legal though. Stuff like that is the whole purpose of reverse engineering. You can't copy the code but you can learn how it works so you can do it yourself.
- belltaco 5y ago
  >but you can learn how it works so you can do it yourself This part is definitely illegal. You can learn how it works but you cannot write the code yourself, you have to write the specs for someone else to do it, who hasn't done the reverse engineering.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    That's clean room reverse engineering, a rigorous method to make absolutely sure that the results are legal so it can't be questioned later. It's not a legal requirement and it does not prevent lawsuits. It just makes it more likely that the legal battle will be won.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - phendrenad2 5y ago
      I think GP is referring to the DMCA, which forbids reverse-engineering unless it's to understand how to interface your own code with something (although I'm not a lawyer).
      - matheusmoreira 5y ago
        Yes, even under the DMCA it's totally legal to reverse engineer for the purposes of interoperability. Wine was created to make Windows applications work on Linux. I reverse engineered my laptop's crappy manufacturer software in order to make a Linux version.
edgyquant 5y ago
This isn’t illegal though? You can do clean room reimplementations
LocalH 5y ago
Reverse engineering isn't illegal, friend.