On Jan 28, 2010, at 10:12 AM, W. Wayne Liauh wrote: >> It is not a technical issue, but a legal one. >> >> I don't know if it is legal to ship a QQ client >> created by using "reverse engineering". >> But I know, in 2006, Tencent filed a copyright >> lawsuit against Chen Shoufu (aka Soff), the author of >> Coral QQ, whose redistributing modified Tencent QQ >> was ruled illegal. >> He is sentenced 3 years, fine 1.2 million yuan. >> >> Ginn >> > > Hi Ginn, I didn't mean to be rude, I was actually watching the webcast when I > made my reply--I am too senile to do multiple tasking. > > What I meant to say is that the Chen Shoufu case has nothing to do with what > Ubuntu is doing (and hopefully OpenSolaris will be able to duplicate or even > do better).
I don't know. I can't give any legal" opinion. > Chen Shoufu was doing OK when he was writing--and making available for > downloading--extensions for Tencent QQ (he was found not guilty on this > count). But, as I understand it, Chen Shoufu became impatient (& some say > greedy) and began wrapping his extensions around at least some of the QQ code > (& replacing the Tencent ads with his own ads), and making the combined > package available. This is clearly a copyright violation. > > As you mentioned, the QQ client has been "reverse engineered" to show the > involved protocol. I know we have many software experts here, and you don't > have to look at a code to figure out the protocol. Since a copyright > protection does not extend to functionality--I am sure we all know this, > writing a software implementing the QQ client protocol is not a copyright > violation. Actually, there is even a QQ client written in java. :-) For some reason, the author stopped developing LumaQQ for Mac/Linux and made it GPL as soon as Tencent shipped a beta version of QQ for Mac. > > However, the open source version of the QQ client is known to have limited > features (though it should be good enough for inclusion in OpenSolaris). But > as I am sure you are aware, Tencent actually provides QQ clients for various > platforms, including Linux. Most Linux distros avoid the proprietary Tencent > version, and I was hoping that perhaps we can sweet talk Tencent into writing > a Solaris version. Perhaps, if it fits Tencent's business interests. Ginn > -- > This message posted from opensolaris.org > _______________________________________________ > opensolaris-discuss mailing list > [email protected] _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list [email protected]
