On 2015-03-06 03:30 PM, thufir wrote:
"For example, my capable colleague Helene Tamer constantly insisted, that
Deutsche Telekom AG could not give up her restrictions to use LGPL
libraries until
I had offered a reliable proof that the LGPL does not require reverse
engineering."
Admittedly, I have no idea how to parse that sentence and lost interest
at that point. First off, it doesn't matter what LGPL has to say about,
because, at least in the U.S.A., reverse engineering is legal:
'Sec. 103(f) of the DMCA
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act> (17
U.S.C. ยง 1201 (f)
<http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001201----000-.html>)
says that a person who is in legal possession of a program, is permitted
to reverse-engineer and circumvent its protection if this is necessary
in order to achieve "interoperability"' -wikipedia
So, even if the LGPL prevents, or allows, reverse engineering, it
doesn't matter, because reverse engineering is legal. No license can
make reverse engineering illegal. So why this person cares what the
license says is confusing. It doesn't matter what the license says
about reverse engineering (not that I think it says anything on the topic).
Secondly, the sentence itself makes no sense, at least to me. How can
the LGPL "require" reverse engineering? Meaning that anyone using the
library is then required to reverse engineer it? Or cannot? The
sentence makes no sense itself to me.
"This license requires that anyone using the software reverse engineer
it." Nope, makes no sense; although I suppose you could require that
anyone using the library stand on their head(?). The negation of that
sentence, that reverse engineering of the license is prohibited, at
least makes sense, but just doesn't matter -- because reverse
engineering software is legal. So the person making the statement is
either raising non-issues or is unaware of the legality of reverse
engineering (to be charitable).
Maybe they mean "anyone forking this library is required to first
reverse engineer this library" is just absurd, but, maybe that's what
the concern is...? What is their actual concern?
-Thufir
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