On Mon, Feb 05, 2001 at 09:11:22PM +0000, Nic Ferrier wrote:
> >>> "Rolf W. Rasmussen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 05-Feb-01 8:42:38 PM >>>
>
> >Yes, reverse-engineering is permitted in most countries
> >with sane laws. However, I don't think you can claim
> >that you're making a clean-room implementation at the
> >same time, unless you're deploying some kind of
> >double-blind scheme.
>
> I don't think what Andrew's doing could be illegal in anyway.
Neither do I, or at least I don't feel that it should be illegal.
But I'm not sure that the term "clean-room implementation" is an
accurate description for something that has been derived in an
automated fashion from copyrighted material.
> As far
> as I understand it he's simple generating the stubs of the files from
> the public java docs.
I think he stated that he also used reflection to gather information
used generate the stubs. If so, we're no longer on safe ground. The
reflection API has the ability to scan classes and members that are
not part of the public API, and are not strictly needed to create a
conforming/interoperable implementation.
> I'm not aware of any legal restriction of parsing text in copyrighted
> material.
<speculation type=wild>
No, but the resulting output of the of the parsing might carry over
copyright protected expression from the original material, thus making
it illegal to distribute it in many parts of the globe.
</speculation>
Whether any expression deserving copyright protection is being carried
over in Andrew's case is something that I haven't got the legal insight
to judge.
--
Rolf W. Rasmussen
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