Subject:
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Re: Fan Thank You Letter
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego
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Date:
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Thu, 20 Jun 2002 20:00:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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1346 times
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In lugnet.lego, John Barnes writes:
>
> You may find that this is not quite true. There were some serious cases
> brought by Microsoft against people who decompiled MSDOS and reverse
> engineered a lot of MSDOS' undocumented features. This go tus to the point
> where a lot of today's software license agreements, which most people gloss
> over, include "no reverse engineering allowed" statements. Reverse
> engineering may not be against the law as an act unto itself, but it is most
> certainly covered by most license agreements.
John is right in that if you agree to the licensing agreement that has a
"reverse engineering" clause in it and you reverse engineer the software, you
have violated the license agreement. I will search Lexus-Nexus case law
tonight, but I know of no specific "reverse engineering" law on the books.
Where the software companies get you is by placing everything under the sun in
the licensing agreement, any violation of a policy in that agreement, winds you
up in volation of the stipulated agreement but not the law.
I think if you talk to most companies the concept of reverse engineering is an
established model for developing a competitive product. I was told that half
the electronics or double E engineering programs in the U.S. teach students to
open up their electronics and "discover" how components are made and
manufactured. Isn't this reverse engineering? I thought the whole idea behind
it was to find out how the other guy did it an do it better.
By the way, no matter what the Microsoft XP licensing agreement says, I am not
naming my first born son Bill. You all read the agreement, right? ;^)
Todd
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Fan Thank You Letter
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| Todd wrote; ..major snippage (...) ..major snippage You may find that this is not quite true. There were some serious cases brought by Microsoft against people who decompiled MSDOS and reverse engineered a lot of MSDOS' undocumented features. This (...) (22 years ago, 20-Jun-02, to lugnet.lego)
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