That as I understand it, is the policy that IBM used for reverse-engineering MS Wind3.x for IBM OS/2. So it's well understood.
Wesley Parish
On Fri, 20 Jan 2006 06:58, Joseph Galbraith wrote:
Steven Edwards wrote:
Hi Hartmut,
On 1/19/06, Hartmut Birr osexpert@googlemail.com wrote:
If it is legal by the ReactOS policy to disassemble every piece of windows code to implement ReactOS, I would like it if ReactOS can put this on the home page as the first topic.
This type of reverse-engineering is prohibited by law in many countries. It gives M$ a very easy way to kick the project.
I can't believe that the project was started with this justification.
No this is clearly a violation of the policy
From Section C of the ReactOS IP Statement (C. Copyrights of Others)
....Any source code produced by direct reverse engineering should be treated in exactly the same way as any other non-free source code - useful for study and understanding of the system, but not permitted for inclusion in ReactOS.
My recommendation for ReactOS is:
- Review the ReactOS project development policy
I think the policy is clear that this type of dirty-room reverse engineering should be used as a last resort only.
Personally, I think that if the project is to survive (and I suspect it may be too late) the policy should be:
If you look at a piece of windows in a disassembler, you MUST NOT implement that code for ReactOS. You can write a document describing what is necessary and put that document in SVN. Some other developer(s) MUST do the implementation-- furthermore, they MUST do the implementation without discussing it with you-- they MUST work strictly from the document you wrote.
That may be harsh, and slow down progress, but I suspect that is the only way ReactOS would survive a legal challenge.
Probably, to be safe, we'd actually need to say:
If you look at windows in a disassembler, you MUST NOT write code for ReactOS. Sorry, thats the way it is. But wait! You can still help with the project by looking at this list (link to list) of things we need to know in order to be compatible with windows. Then, discover this information using the disassembler, and write a specification (plain English, no code or pseudo-code please) that describes what we need to know and submit it to the project for inclusion in our repository. One of our developers will then (eventually) get around to using your specification to correct our implementation to be compatible.
I'm not sure we'd ever get that through... but that is the way it should be.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer ... so what do I know.
Thanks,
Joseph _______________________________________________ Ros-dev mailing list Ros-dev@reactos.org http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev