In article <[email protected]>, Hyman Rosen <[email protected]> wrote:
> ZnU wrote: > > Can you really just read the source code to figure out > > that file format, and then go write your app? > > Yes, you can, without incurring any copyright obligations from > the existing program. The program you write, however, must not > contain significant portions of code from the studied program, > unless those pieces represent the only way to do something. This sort of clean-room approach is taken when reverse engineering commercial products because, or so my understanding goes, if there happen to be similarities between your implementation and the original implementation, it's much harder to get nailed for copyright violation if you can prove you took steps so that the guys who wrote your code weren't the same guys who looked at the plaintiff's code. I suspect the same issues surround GPL'd code, except that it's harder to prove separation was maintained. -- "The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
