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2009/3/14 Robin Cornelius <robin.cornelius@xxxxxxxxx>: >> I believe you can't outlaw reverse engineering for purposes of >> interoperability. > > I thought the DMCA has a dam fine attempt at doing this across the pond. Nope. That just prevents circumventing security for copy protection. >> You can write it into the license, but those clauses are not enforceable >> on anyone residing in the EU, or the USA, and probably most other places. >> >> Comes down to what it is they are trying to protect here, and the need >> for lawyers. >> >> Unless there is specific hardware involved, i.e. this is general purpose >> software, they have copyright, and the most you can do with copyright is >> remove peoples right to make copies of it or derivative works. > > Well the software is client server software (and we are talking clients > here), and with out the server its pretty much useless and would serve > no useful function at all. So I guess they could dictate who connects to > there network (as you do need a registered account). That in itself is probably all the protection they need - their time would be best spent on making that robust and easy to use. > As for reverse engineering, there are patents involved so a replacement > product developed from scratch or even a derivative work could be in > breach of that but that's a whole separate sticky mess. Software patents have a fairly low liklihood of surviving the first hurdle of legal action, even in unlikely case of a software patent being thrown out altogether, it can still then be challenged on many grounds, and there is very little chance that any SME has the legal power to survive that battle. Unless the directors and investors are prepared to sell or remortgage their homes, cars to pay legal expenses of defending the patent in court the money spent on it was wasted. > As for what they are trying to protect, well I can't see anything in the > client that needs protection. As they have a patent over the one of the > most important pieces they may as just as well release the code (and > there is reference material for the patent including an example of how > to implement it in C, that is publicly available). The software patent will prevent most open source developers going near it, even in binary form - it's a poisoned challice - as soon as you've possessed it has a significant impact on software you write in the same area, no license will fix that, even in binary form nobody will want to touch it because they could claim that somebody de-compiled it (which is quite possible) and so wilfully infringed. > The company primary market is a service provider, so I would have though > maximising the > availability of the client would be a very good thing. The other parts > of the client appear to be pretty standard and wildly available protocols. So it makes no sense at all to be fussing with patents and licenses. > I think most of this is blind corporate panic at not really > understanding open-source and how to embrace it for there own benefit. Or even understanding patent law or the software business. > The crux of what they are currently trying to do is to allow it to be > copied but not to allow derivative works to be created. Ha ha, that's very silly. > I just hope we can move past all this in to something that can be called > opensource as every one involved would benefit. Unlikely, you're dealing with people who aren't thinking rationally, either in a business or technical sense. In all seriousness, I'd recomend walking away, as any attempts to get them to open up is a wasted effort doomed to failure. A. -- http://www.aarontrevena.co.uk LAMP System Integration, Development and Hosting -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html