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The rar license prohibits writing a compatible compressor? What kind of nonsense is that? I clicked the license link and there is a scary looking anti-reverse
by throwaway81523 5y ago
The rar license prohibits writing a compatible compressor? What kind of nonsense is that? I clicked the license link and there is a scary looking anti-reverse-engineering clause, but 1) that sounds legally dubious given how the program is distributed; and 2) there is a FOSS decompressor, and studying that may be sufficient to write a compressor without examining the non-free official compressor.
The article is right that there's not much good reason to use rar these days. It is still popular in some communities though. So I've had occasion to run the decompressor, though not the compressor as far as I can remember.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lazka 5y agoMicrosoft ASF/WMA also has a similar limitation, where it disallows writing an open source implementation if you use the official format specification. Luckily it is too mostly irrelevant nowadays.
- ur-whale 5y ago> Microsoft ASF/WMA also has a similar limitation, Doesn't mean it would in court.
- nikanj 5y agoIf you've got the resources to mount a credible legal defence against Microsoft
- throwaway81523 5y agoMicrosoft ironically made its fortune by selling software that ran on IBM PC compatible x86 boxes, built around PC BIOS's that started from a clean room reimplementation of the reverse engineered IBM BIOS. IBM itself was not very significant in that market except at the very beginning. Clones for me, but not for thee.
- grrrrlpower 5y agoI look back now at how weird it was going to the store looking for the IBM compatible computers amongst the Amiga, Apple's, Commodores and such.
- kstenerud 5y agoFrom the winrar download page you can download the binaries directly without agreeing to any license, which means its clauses wouldn't apply. It's already been established in the courts that merely using a piece of software does not imply acceptance of licensing terms; the parties must actively agree to it. That's why so many companies push in-your-face agreements that you must actively click "I agree" to.
- mimsee 5y agoCould I then download a zip of torvalds/linux from github and use it without abiding by the license as it’s never thrown in my face?
- bitwize 5y agoYes! Unlike other licenses, the GPL explicitly covers distribution, not use.
- karatinversion 5y agoYou can do that anyway, but if you wanted to break the license by distributing modified copies without providing sources, you would fall foul of copyright law.
- alanfranz 5y agoWhen you open the source the license is there.
- kazinator 5y agoYes. The GPL is not a license which dictates how you can use software, such as that you must not read it, or use ideas from it. EULA restrictions like "no reverse engineering" are not rooted in copyright law, and borrowing ideas is in the realm of patents. EULA's try to leverage copyright law in order to impose non-copyright restrictions, using the concept that if you violate any of the arbitrary non-copyright restrictions, the thereby violated license lapses, and that license is the document which allows you to have a copy of the software (not the fact that you paid).
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoClearly people who write licences want us to believe they are lawmakers. We need to clamp down on this and put them back in their place.
- mort96 5y agoIt would probably be possible to argue in court that your compressor isn't technically breaking any laws. But why go through the trouble of using formats which aren't meant to be used, when there are so many good alternatives out there which actually are intentionally freely available?
- grishka 5y agoIn some countries there's an exception in the copyright law if you're reverse engineering something to provide compatibility.
- pid-1 5y agoAlso in many countries software / algorithm parents do no exist, so you could write your own rar utility.
- anthk 5y agoUnar is a libre alternative.
- colonwqbang 5y agoOnce you have fully "re-created the RAR algorithm" you would not need to license the official one anymore. So it's OK, just uninstall RAR from your computer at that point :)