[License-discuss] Reverse Engineering and Open Source Licenses

[thufir]

On 2015-03-08 01:33 PM, John Cowan wrote:
> Frankly, I have zero sympathy for Baystate's behavior.  Bowers offered to
> license his technology on commercial terms, and they told him they thought
> they could do it themselves.  They then licensed a copy of his work,
> accepting in the process the license's prohibition on reverse engineering,
> which they then proceeded to reverse engineer.  When Bowers sued, they
> tried to claim that this part of the contract didn't apply to them.
> Legally, they could have been right; ethically, their position is
> bargain-basement.  Hard cases, as the saying is, make bad law, and now
> we're stuck with it.


In terms of right/wrong, reverse engineering shrink-wrapped software, or 
firmware for something you buy off the shelf, *seems*, to me, distinct 
from what's described above, approaching someone, not negotiating, etc.  
I suppose it comes down to whether or not the binary has been legally 
obtained.

The problem is that when you get into EULA, then the precedent this sets 
allows a prohibition against reverse engineering most any proprietary 
software -- all that's needed is clause!  That surely wasn't the 
intention of the legislature in the US when they wrote laws about this.

Does the same logic apply to widgets?  If so, that would, potentially, 
kill after-market car parts, which, if I'm not mistaken, are reverse 
engineered from the original.



-Thufir