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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.
by 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 agoThat'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 agoI 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 agoYes, 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 agoThis isn’t illegal though? You can do clean room reimplementations
- LocalH 5y agoReverse engineering isn't illegal, friend.