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The opensource community has rules against this, because the code is not usable from an legal standpoint.
by stop50 4y ago
The opensource community has rules against this, because the code is not usable from an legal standpoint.
- z9znz 4y agoI'm not quite sure I follow. In my case, the competitor's product is unseeable unless you get a demo or are a subscriber. So I don't even know what it does (from a UI perspective). I have ideas just based on my understanding of one client's needs. This is not about code. This would just be like getting temporary access as a user to see a software product, as if you were a subscriber.
- stop50 4y agoThey can argue that what you did violated their copyright. The wikipedia article explains it better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design
- kazinator 4y agoThat sort of thing will happen no matter what. Microsoft Windows didn't have any Apple Mac code in it; yet in 1988 or so, Apple perpetrated a look-and-feel lawsuit against Microsoft (and lost). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros.... You can hardly write a program to do anything without infringing on multiple patents.
- kazinator 4y agoWhich "opensource community" is this? It can't possibly be the one that ran Unix, while cloning more and more of it until the original was jettisoned?
- stop50 4y agoBSD rewrote everything until nothing was from the original. Wine and reactos use an clean room design. a dirty room design is an legal liability.
- kazinator 4y agoThis "Ask HN" is about viewing a demo. Are you saying that you believe that nobody in Wine or ReactOS had viewed Microsoft Windows? These projects replicate detailed behaviors at the API (and below) level, never mind what you see on the screen.