Re: Reverse engineering (was Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario)

Jeff V. Merkey
2005-12-06T22:20:39Z

Jeff Garzik wrote:

> Lee Revell wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:41 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>>
>>> Lee Revell wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, 2005-12-06 at 14:13 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Let's hope the rev-eng people do it the right way, by having one
>>>>> team write a document, and a totally separate team write the
>>>>> driver from
>>>>> that document.
>>>>
>>>
>>>> Isn't it also legal for a single person or team to capture all IO
>>>> to/from the device with a bus analyzer or kernel debugger and write a
>>>> driver from that, as long as you don't disassemble the original
>>>> driver?
>>>
>>>
>>> It's still legally shaky. The "Chinese wall" approach I described
>>> above is beyond reproach, and that's where Linux needs to be.
>>
>>
>>
>> I know you are not a lawyer but do you have a pointer or two? As long
>> as we are REing for interoperability I've never read anything to
>> indicate the approach I described could be a problem even in the US.
>
>
> The _potential_ for problems is very high:
>
> 1) [ref Alan's email] copying programming sequences
>
> 2) Lack of Chinese wall requires TRUST and EVIDENCE that you did the
> rev-eng without "source code that fell off the back of a truck" [i.e.
> illegally obtained] or "docs that fell off the back of a truck."
>
> 3) Lack of Chinese wall increases the likelihood that a SCOX or other
> entity could use that as a legal weapon against Linux.

Guys, get real. SCO is out of money and just took 10 million in float
capital to keep the doors open. They are after IBM, not Linux. WAKE UP!!!

Jeff

>
> In Linux, I really have no way of knowing how questionable a driver
> submission is, if it did not arrive from the Chinese wall approach, or
> a known hacker with a valid path to hardware docs/engineers/code.
> Past experience shows that Mr. Unknown Hacker is likely to take legal
> shortcuts when writing the driver.
>
> If I accept code of highly questionable origin, then I put Linux in
> jeopardy.
>
> Jeff
>
>
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