Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 17:18:58 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> To: lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov Cc: freebsd-smp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Lots 'o PCI slots Message-ID: <199707240018.RAA16606@phaeton.artisoft.com> In-Reply-To: <199707232244.PAA29632@george.arc.nasa.gov> from "lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov" at Jul 23, 97 03:44:11 pm
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Sean claims I'm giving legal advice; just in case someone thought I was, I'm not, so this statement is my disclaimer. > > I don't think it's possible for it to be illegal to write code > > for hardware you own. > > I always thought that reverse-engineering was generally protected > in the U.S. (but not in all countries). Increasingly, however, > I am noticing shrink-wrapped licenses that say something to the > effect that by opening the package, I am agreeing not to reverse- > engineer anything inside the package. Is this legally binding > in the U.S. and/or other countries? Well, I can tell you legal history without it being advice. The Berne convention specifically excepts reverse engineering for the purposes of documenting an interface. This is sometimes called "the piracy clause". However, it also states that local copyright laws take precedence, so it's possible that this is only legal in Germany, which has local laws allowing reverse engineering an interface. So in Germany, at least, I don't believe it is binding. Historically in the US, there have been judgements against companies for reverse engineering. Specifically, Microsoft sued and won against Stacker for "deep reverse engineering". Even after reading the briefs and the judgement for that case, I still have no idea how "deep reverse engineeering" differs from "plain old reverse engineering". Lotus Developement sued several companies for "infringing their look and feel". Several settled, but one fought (and won). If Lotus had won, I would have expected VisiCalc to sue them for the same thing, and win, citing the Lotus win. This was an apellate court decision, which means it's binding case law for the district served by the court. Apple sued Digital Research over a similar "look and feel" issue, citing the GEM interface's trash can icon as being an infringement on Apple's look and feel. DR backed down (settled out of court, part of which required them to change their icon), but interestingly enough, Atari, which had licensed GEM for the ST, refused to change the icon, and was apparently not harrassed about it. Perhaps one of the most interesting cases is COMPAQ, and then later Phoenix Technologies. They reverse engineered the IBM PC BIOS, and led to the existance of clones. To accomplish this, they used a technique called "clean-rooming". Basically, one group disassembled and documented the BIOS in sufficient detail that it could be rewritten. Then they threw the document over the wall to another group, which wrote the BIOS from the documentation produced by the first group. This was deemed to be legal by a court (obviously, IBM was a bit upset), since the people who wrote the BIOS never saw IBM's code. Now PC BIOS code is a commodity, and you can purchase one from several places. You can even get one in source form from an ad in Dr. Dobb's journal. So clean room reverse engineering is apparently OK, so long as as it isn't "deep"? ...I guess. As far as shrink wrap licenses, I don't believe any have been tested to the apellate level. I know of two non-apellate tests, one in Missouri, and one in Wisconsin. Both found the licenses invalid. Note that finding the license invalid does not necessarily mean that the people they found against were allowed to keep the software. I believe the Missouri suit was against a company which rented software to people, and the Wisconsin suit was against a company which sold used software. I also know that there are at least 5 stores in my area, mostly book stores which sell used books, selling used software with apparent impugnity. >From this, and from apellate level decisions regarding other types of implied contract, I don't think shrink wrap licenses are very enforcible. As implied contracts go, your entry into the contract is conditional upon an act, rather than on your consent to and acknowledgement of the agreement. On a more personal note, "Yes, I own a copy of V Communications 'Sourcer' product, and I use it to disassemble code and document hardware interfaces. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199707240018.RAA16606>