Hi,
On 22 Mar 2002, Claus Färber kindly wrote:
Georg Jakob jack@unix.sbg.ac.at schrieb/wrote:
Why the hell would anybody want to reverse-engineere a programm when you can have the source under GPL?
You completly missed the point: The statement only shows that it is the intention of the legislator to allow creation of interoperable software regardless of copyright restrictions.
I thougt it was clear that nobody would want to reverse engineer apache. I got your point - you wanted to make clear the intention of the legislator using an example that can't be directly applied to apache. On the other hand, I just wanted to point out that maybe your example was to far away to be applied to apache (or other Free Software, especially GPLed) at all.
So, depending on national law (in Germany ?307 II 1. BGB) this might render a clause that only allows interoperable software under certain conditions (such as being GPL) void.
In general I agree with you. Apart from "such as being GPL". But please read on.
Otherwise, this would lead to strange situations: You would always be allowed to decompile the programme to find out the information neccessary to write interoperable programmes (as it can't excluded by contract) but you could not write interoperable programmes because of other licensing restrictions.
Good point. Please see my other response for details on that.
So, your analogy is incorrect: What you are reffering to is a legal measure designed for cases in which you buy software and can not use it the way you need, because the Licensor refuses to give you the source.
No, that's plain wrong. The Directive 91/250/EEC clearly says:
| Whereas an objective of this exception is to make it possible to | connect all components of a computer system, including those of | different manufacturers, so that they can work together;
| [...] provided that the following conditions are met:
| (a) these acts are performed by the licensee or by another person having ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ | a right to use a copy of a program, or on their behalf by a person ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | authorized to do so;
OK, this means that you have to have a license for the binary to be privileged by the directive, i.e. you have to have a valid contract with the licensor. Notice that nothing is said about licensing conditions - those are left to negotiation between licensor and licensee.
| (b) the information necessary to achieve interoperability has not | previously been readily available to the persons referred to in | subparagraph (a)
For GPLed Software, the source is available per definitionem.
The problem is *readily*. Do the sources have to be available without any limiting conditions? No, that would be ridicoulus. They have to be available under the same conditions as the binary. And the GPL is one of the few licenses that does exactly that.
(where it is clear from later paragraphs that components refers to both hard and software.)
Yes. License compatibility is *not* an issue of the directive. Neither is the fairness of a license.
So we are back to the purpose of the law, this is not only about what the law itself says, but what can be derived from it's content and context as the true intention of the legislator.
And the cases I mentioned - where the manufacturer=vendor refuses to give you the source - are what the legilator had in mind. The directive simply wasn't designed for Free Software.