On: One Company Dared Compete With IBM And Macintosh C...

[mahmud]

I believe reverse-engineering is still legal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Legality

http://www.chillingeffects.org/question.cgi?QuestionID=195

[jevinskie → mahmud]

Not when doing DRM work. It is an anti-circumvention device under the DMCA and the "research exception" is very weak and almost worthless in practice.

[vidarh → jevinskie]

.. in the US. In most of Europe for example, your ability to circumvent DRM for the purpose of reverse engineering for interoperability is protected.

[InclinedPlane → mahmud]

Can you give any comparable examples of reverse-engineering having occurred in the last decade? It seems to me as though it's easier than ever to halt that sort of thing. For example, embed some form of DRM in the device/firmware and then the reverse engineering attempt becomes a DRM circumvention attempt. Or, embed some bit of patented software and claim patent protections.

The example that comes to mind is George Hotz's PS3 "hacking" which brought about a massive lawsuit from Sony.

[kahawe → InclinedPlane]

> reverse-engineering having occurred in the last decade

For what it is worth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_4#Version_History

[mahmud → kahawe]

Samba team reversed the binary protocol for interop with Free Software, at a time when Microsoft, a convicted monopolist, was being investigated by the EU and the U.S.justice department.

This is a very specific example and I wouldn't go by it alone as a precedent.

[kahawe → mahmud]

What samba was doing has been going on long before the EU was looking into microsoft and continued afterwards...

[octaveguin → mahmud]

If one were to create a phone compatible with iOS apps, would there not be a lawsuit following?

Maybe we use different laws to enforce it but the basics of what you can expect to do today are different.