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#! rnews 4178 bsd Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!samba.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!bug.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!genmagic!sgigate.sgi.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!newsfeed.internetmci.com!News.LiveNet.Net!beast From: jsloan@LiveNet.Net (Jim Sloan) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: Sun, 12 May 96 03:51:49 GMT Organization: LiveNet, Inc. Lines: 63 Message-ID: <4n3n8l$23o_002@news.livenet.net> References: <NELSON.96Apr15010553@ns.crynwr.com> <31866E12.67FD83BE@lambert.org> <4m8k99$o12@master.di.fc.ul.pt> <318978E8.14B8@vfr.interceptor.com> <4mmhcj$dfr@news1.halcyon.com> <31901BFD.7BAC@vfr.interceptor.com> <4n3jg3$9ha@portal.gmu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: red.livenet.net X-Newsreader: News Xpress 2.0 Beta #0 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:23616 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:951 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3736 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3596 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:19237 comp.os.linux.advocacy:49045 In article <4n3jg3$9ha@portal.gmu.edu>, ccooney1@site.gmu.edu (Christopher M Cooney (CS)) wrote: >Thumper! (thumper@vfr.interceptor.com) wrote: >: Tim Smith wrote: >: > >: > Thumper! <thumper@vfr.interceptor.com> wrote: >: > >Even if you own the product, it is ILLEGAL for you to use that information > to >: > >engineer your own product, whether it be compatible or not (ie, using the >: > >information to learn from is illegal as well). >: > >: > [I'm assuming United States law in this posting] >: > >: > In general, this is incorrect. If you don't want someone to be able to >: > legally reverse engineer your product, you've got to get them to >: > contractually agree to not reverse engineer it. For non-software >: > products, there is not much you can do to stop reverse engineering, >: > except get patents to cover the essentials of your product, or make >: > sure that you are careful who you sell to. If it's going to be a mass >: > marketed product that any schmoe can go and buy at the supermarket or >: > hardware store, patents are about the only protection you can hope >: > for. > >: That would sadly imply that software is unprotectable. Commercial software, > GNU, >: GPL, etc, are meaningless, because it's therefore legal to take someone's > product, >: take it apart to see how it works, and then derive your own work partially, > or even >: entirely, from that work, and proceed to legally sell your own work. That > would >: also apply to hardware as well; just take apart an Intel CPU, make a copy, > and >: build your own. After all, why should patents offer protection that > copyright >: doesn't? > >NO. >if you take apart the cpu and use the info to write a program, >that's legal. if you use the info to make a cpu (and copy the microcode) >that's illegal. if you copy the instruction set and roll your own >hardware, that's legal. >understand yet? >-chris > One thing you missed here chris, the illegal part is copying the microcode, but taking the microcode and RE-writing it isn't illegal, as long as the micro-code isn't the same. How do you think NexGen, AMD, Cyrix, et al are creating pentium compatible CPUs? They can't use Intel's micro-code, but they can use their own micro-code based on what they are able to reverse engineer on how that micro-code performs. The idea isn't copyrightable, nor is it patentable, only the implementation is. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jim Sloan jsloan@livenet.net Vice President LiveNet, Inc. 413 Davis St. Suite 106 Full Service Internet Provider Virginia Beach VA 23462 Dialup and dedicated connections Ph: 804-499-9328 Virtual Web, Email, and FTP hosting http://www.livenet.net info@livenet.net webmaster@livenet.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------