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2016-08-18
, 05:20
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@ UK
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#52
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Not that reverse engineering is particularly legal either 
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2016-08-18
, 05:52
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#53
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Originally Posted by pichlo
Depends, its not illegal here
Not that reverse engineering is particularly legal either
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2016-08-18
, 06:45
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@ Germany
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#54
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Originally Posted by pichlo
Reverse engineering is legal (at least in the EU), when the goal is to build a compatible product (e.g. a 3rd-party whatsapp client...)
Not that reverse engineering is particularly legal either
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2016-08-18
, 07:11
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@ Southerrn Finland
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#55
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Yes, reverse-engineering is legal, except in some backwater countries 
It has even been tested in court that a software license that prohibits reverse-engineering is not binding in Finland; you cannot be forced to honor such terms if embedded in the licencing agreement.
This comes pretty close to patents issue, I guess @reinob is the expert on the matter but in EU a patent in an innovation covers only the commercial exploitation of the patented feature.
This means that if one makes objects/software/services/whatever and sells them for a fee (I am not sure if it is necessary to make profit doing so?) then one needs to obtain a license from the patent holder; however if one makes and gives away for free, no license is required.
It has even been tested in court that a software license that prohibits reverse-engineering is not binding in Finland; you cannot be forced to honor such terms if embedded in the licencing agreement.
This comes pretty close to patents issue, I guess @reinob is the expert on the matter but in EU a patent in an innovation covers only the commercial exploitation of the patented feature.
This means that if one makes objects/software/services/whatever and sells them for a fee (I am not sure if it is necessary to make profit doing so?) then one needs to obtain a license from the patent holder; however if one makes and gives away for free, no license is required.
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2016-08-18
, 07:29
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@ Southerrn Finland
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#57
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Originally Posted by Macros
I am partly joking but partly serious in this analogy. And there is a real reason I said immoral and not illegal.
Originally Posted by juicemeI hope your smiley meant you are joking, but the wording lets me doubt it. Don't confuse immoral with illegal.well, leaks are immoral, heh
Look at Snowden, and the bad rep given to Wikileaks lately...
What Snowden did was in no way immoral. He exposed the wrongdoings of the NSA. The case with Wikileaks is similar.
These people are heroes, they sacrifice, or at least risk, their personal freedom just for the chance to stop these wrongdoings.
Its like saying a guy who exposes a group of human traffickers acted immorally because he exposed his working colleagues.
Just as with leaking information that is good for common knowledge but dangerous to and suppressed by some parties leads you to a moral dilemma; you need to make sure you are doing it so it leaves your conciense clear.
Just as @pichlo says;
Originally Posted by pichlo
There is a subtle difference between illegal and immoral;
Morality, like truth, is not something universal, hanging in the air. It is subjective and depends on where you stand. For some, Snowden "exposed NSA's wrongdoings". For others, he "threatened national security".
Regarding the topic of this thread, I know that some people believe that sacrificing anything and everything on the altar of their open-source god is never immoral but the truth is that the sources are Nokia's intellectual property and it is up to Nokia and Nokia alone to decide whatever they damn please with them, however inconvenient it might be for you. Making that decision for Nokia and leaking them would be not only illegal but also immoral.
If something is illegal, the rules are forced on you by external parties. When you break those rules it can be considered OK as long as you get away with it. Remember, you did no make the rules!
If, in the other hand you are doing an immoral thing, it goes against your own self and hurts you.
How this relates to the case of leaking maemo sources;
I could not give a toss about it if the sources and rights were owned my MS; that company has treated my friends and colleagues pretty badly and I have no moral obligations whatsover to them.
However as it has been established that the rights are still owned by Nokia it is a different thing alltogether.
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2016-08-18
, 08:15
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@ Germany
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#58
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Originally Posted by juiceme
If you make something that is patented and make it available in any way in a country where the patent is valid then you need a license from the patent holder, regardless of whether you're giving it away for free, selling it with or without profit, etc.
This means that if one makes objects/software/services/whatever and sells them for a fee (I am not sure if it is necessary to make profit doing so?) then one needs to obtain a license from the patent holder; however if one makes and gives away for free, no license is required.
The only exceptions are (AFAIK):
1) you use something patented in private
2) you teach (e.g. university) something that is patented
3) you are a medical doctor treating a patient. you can do whatever you want without having to worry about infringing.
(maybe there are more, I don't know now).
Plus of course if you are sure/convinced that the patent is invalid, you can try that, but that can take time/money plus the risk of having been wrong (see Oracle vs Google..)
Enough for now..
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So you read them, then what? Every bit of code you write after that could be tainted from what you've read. You risk being sued if someone finds any similarities between your code and the stolen code. None of the leaked sources could be included in CSSU without jeopardising the whole project. It may even put an end to any future reverse engineering efforts as there are bound to be similarities in the resultant code. It would be very difficult to prove that it didn't come from stolen code.
DebiaN900 - Native Debian on the N900.Deprecated in favour of Maemo Leste.Maemo Leste for N950 and N9 (currently broken).
Devuan for N950 and N9.
Mobile devices with mainline Linux support - Help needed with documentation.
"Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." - Henry Spencer
Last edited by wicket; 2016-08-17 at 23:30.