Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 22:52:11 -0800 From: "SteveB" <admin@bsdfan.cncdsl.com> To: "Drew Eckhardt" <drew@PoohSticks.ORG>, <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: FreeBSD vs Linux, Solaris, and NT Message-ID: <NEBBIGOKKMNLOMOHMJNPAEMJCNAA.admin@bsdfan.cncdsl.com> In-Reply-To: <200012220617.eBM6H8h13242@chopper.Poohsticks.ORG>
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Trouble is there is no consistency in the rulings. Hardware decisions in general are mirrors of software cases. Hardware reverse engineering tends to be legal. But with software they use Clean programmer, Dirty programmer. In other words you can write a program exactly like another, if you can prove you never saw the other program. If you saw the similar program you are dirty. The weird thing is your Marketing people can see the other program and tell you what to do. That's legal. Steve B. > -----Original Message----- > From: drew@chopper.Poohsticks.ORG > [mailto:drew@chopper.Poohsticks.ORG]On > Behalf Of Drew Eckhardt > Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2000 10:17 PM > To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG > Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Linux, Solaris, and NT > > > In message <200012220125.eBM1PYp10444@jhs.muc.de>, > jhs@jhs.muc.de writes: > >Examiners at the European Patent Office http://www.epo.org tell me: > > Reverse engineering is legal in Europe, Illegal in USA. > > Back in the early nineties, Nintendo sued some one in America > for reverse engineering the circuit included in every cartridge and > using what they learned to sell cartridges without buying the > protection chip from them. > > Nintendo lost. > > If you dig deeper, I believe you'll find cases from the > mainframe era > with similar rulings. > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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