Re: How free is Debian
Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
> You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble this
> Software or any portion thereof.
deloptes writes:
> The irony here is that AMD started by reverse engineering Intel.
Legally. Reverse-engineering is not illegal in the USA.
> And unfortunately the US has been protecting monopoly and fake
> competition for years. Such things as Microsoft, Apple and Google
> should not exist, not to speak of Intel, IBM and many other
> monsters. Amazon, Uber ... many many of them - it is cancer. Some
> time ago I read good article why the Patent Law should change, but I
> forgot where I found the article. The problems are in the patent law,
> as I understood the article
Patent law certainly needs to change (I'm not sure that it should not be
entirely eliminated) but US patent law places no restrictions on reverse
engineering, decompiling, or disassembling software. US copyright law
bars bypassing of copy protection schemes, but there is actually an
exemption for reverse-engineering under some circumstances. Printer and
game manufacturers tried to use these "anti-piracy" provisions of the DMCA
to block reverse-engineering for compatibility purposes and lost in
court.
These sorts of "licenses" are actually attempts at a civil contract.
They really have nothing to do with patent or copyright law. A civil
contract requires agreement in advance, though.
--
John Hasler
jhasler@newsguy.com
Elmwood, WI USA
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