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Interesting, this does sound a bit like clean-room reverse engineering which is a tried-and-true method for reproduction without breaking copyright, but you hav

by dtech 3y ago

Interesting, this does sound a bit like clean-room reverse engineering which is a tried-and-true method for reproduction without breaking copyright, but you having access to and having reviewed the GPL implementation would break that mold.

dspillett 3y ago
It is very similar in spirit to how mp3 patents were worked around back on the late 90s / early 00s. Of course copyright and patents are different beasts, so this similarity is probably legally insignificant.
emodendroket 3y ago
Yeah, adding another engineer to the process would probably make it "cleaner" if you thought the other party was motivated to want to sue you.
maxloh 3y ago
It is very similar to what Google did for Java SE libraries too.
doctorpangloss 3y ago
> Interesting, this does sound a bit like clean-room reverse engineering which is a tried-and-true method for reproduction without breaking copyright To me, it seems obvious that if the developer read the code that's getting replaced and reproduced its behavior to the T, by reading it and running it many times... that's the opposite of a clean room implementation. What do you think a dirty room implementation is then? I'm not saying you are right or wrong, I'm not an IP attorney and I think IP is really boring. I can see how if a developer at a giant company rewrites open source X in Swift, C# or Golang in order to exploit it commercially, there could be a cathedral of opinions that would support, "Okay, this is what is meant by clean room." In the same way that BigCo developers work with their attorneys to file patents for ideas they saw elsewhere and didn't invent all the time. It's one of many possible beliefs about IP, and it can even thrive in reality, but it doesn't mean it is a correct one.
- zugi 3y ago
  My understanding is that the clean room approach is tried and true and sufficient to avoid copyright infringement. So BigCo and other organizations that worry greatly about liability insist on it. However I'm unaware of case law indicating that it's strictly necessary. If the final implementation differs enough from the original, no copyright infringement occurs and no one is going to sue anyone, so the steps taken to arrive at the new version are less relevant.
klyrs 3y ago
From the wikipedia clean room page: > Typically, a clean-room design is done by having someone examine the system to be reimplemented and having this person write a specification. This specification is then reviewed by a lawyer to ensure that no copyrighted material is included. The specification is then implemented by a team with no connection to the original examiners. Without the disconnection between examiners and implementers, it's only slightly similar to a clean room. And we have new case law to consider: an API may be subject to copyright, and those unit tests are highly suspect under that lens.

by dtech 3y ago

dspillett 3y ago

It is very similar in spirit to how mp3 patents were worked around back on the late 90s / early 00s. Of course copyright and patents are different beasts, so this similarity is probably legally insignificant.

emodendroket 3y ago

Yeah, adding another engineer to the process would probably make it "cleaner" if you thought the other party was motivated to want to sue you.

maxloh 3y ago

It is very similar to what Google did for Java SE libraries too.

doctorpangloss 3y ago

> Interesting, this does sound a bit like clean-room reverse engineering which is a tried-and-true method for reproduction without breaking copyright To me, it seems obvious that if the developer read the code that's getting replaced and reproduced its behavior to the T, by reading it and running it many times... that's the opposite of a clean room implementation. What do you think a dirty room implementation is then? I'm not saying you are right or wrong, I'm not an IP attorney and I think IP is really boring. I can see how if a developer at a giant company rewrites open source X in Swift, C# or Golang in order to exploit it commercially, there could be a cathedral of opinions that would support, "Okay, this is what is meant by clean room." In the same way that BigCo developers work with their attorneys to file patents for ideas they saw elsewhere and didn't invent all the time. It's one of many possible beliefs about IP, and it can even thrive in reality, but it doesn't mean it is a correct one.

zugi 3y ago
My understanding is that the clean room approach is tried and true and sufficient to avoid copyright infringement. So BigCo and other organizations that worry greatly about liability insist on it. However I'm unaware of case law indicating that it's strictly necessary. If the final implementation differs enough from the original, no copyright infringement occurs and no one is going to sue anyone, so the steps taken to arrive at the new version are less relevant.

klyrs 3y ago

From the wikipedia clean room page: > Typically, a clean-room design is done by having someone examine the system to be reimplemented and having this person write a specification. This specification is then reviewed by a lawyer to ensure that no copyrighted material is included. The specification is then implemented by a team with no connection to the original examiners. Without the disconnection between examiners and implementers, it's only slightly similar to a clean room. And we have new case law to consider: an API may be subject to copyright, and those unit tests are highly suspect under that lens.