Linus on the BK withdrawal [LWN.net]

Linus on the BK withdrawal

Posted Apr 7, 2005 1:22 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462)
In reply to: Linus on the BK withdrawal by kasperd
Parent article: Linus on the BK withdrawal

Actually, this whole reverse engineering debate is not at all about your right as a person to reverse engineer whatever software. (You don't really think that Larry and his legal counsil would have overseen this, do you?)

It's about how much information Larry has to release in order for other developers to use that in their own software. Which is an entirely different discussion and one you are not likely to win in court. Since Larry is not at all obliged to release *any* information.

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Linus on the BK withdrawal

Posted Apr 7, 2005 2:02 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

s/overseen/missed, sorry, its' getting late here. Or early, rather. ;-)

Linus on the BK withdrawal

Posted Apr 7, 2005 6:43 UTC (Thu) by kasperd (guest, #11842) [Link]

I don't think their lawyers knows the law in every country. This license might very well comply with American law. But did they actually take a look on the law in every European country? I don't think they did.

You say they are not obliged to release any information about their protocol. While that might be true, releasing the information would change the reverse engineering situation. In the Danish law, the right to reverse engineer only applies if you don't have easy access to this information. By giving everybody access to format and protocol specifications, they could actually make the reverse engineering illegal.

What the law says in other countries I won't say much about, since I haven't read it. I have read on the internet, that multiple European countries have laws similar to the Danish on this area, but American law is different.

Linus on the BK withdrawal

Posted Apr 7, 2005 8:33 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

At least they have most likely thought about it quite a bit harder than most of us here. IANALOT either, I just want to point out that it seems to me that this particular aspect of the debate doesn't get a lot of airplay.

Your example of the Danish law would be perfectly aligned with what Larry has been saying quite consistently: he won't do anything to actively help anyone reverse engineer the inner magic of BitKeeper. (Note, by the way, the contradictio in terminis that is hidden in here. It's not all wordplay, it reflects the absurdity of the demands that some people think they can lay on Larry.)

Linus on the BK withdrawal

Posted Apr 7, 2005 20:31 UTC (Thu) by kasperd (guest, #11842) [Link]

> he won't do anything to actively help anyone reverse engineer the inner magic of BitKeeper.

What is this inner magic of which he talks? Good heuristics to merge branches and avoid conflicts? I don't think there is much magic in software. Good heuristics is what looks most like magic to me.

Reverse engineering the formats and protocols isn't necesarilly the same as reverse engineering the heuristics. But of course when you do reverse engineering it may not be possible to reverse engineer exactly the right corner of the code, and you may end find out a lot more than what you really needed.

Had formats and protocols been published the reverse engineering rights had no longer applied. And maybe that way BitMover could have forbidden me to reverse engineer the code.

So in some sense publishing more information could have made it harder to (legally) reverse engineer the inner magic of BitKeeper.

Linus on the BK withdrawal

Posted Apr 7, 2005 22:06 UTC (Thu) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

I can't really follow you here, I'm afraid. Maybe it's because I'm much too lazy to reverse engineer a program, I'd much rather spend my time trying to reverse engineer the programmer who wrote the program, for instance, and start from there (not that I am particularly good at it ;-). Or is that what you call "reverse engineering heuristics"?

You seem to suggest that it can't be that hard to write a non-trivial piece of software. I'm quite sure any kernel hacker would agree with me that, looking at random bits and pieces of an OS kernel, none would look too complicated. The general operation of an OS kernel is no rocket science either. Getting everything right all the time, however, that's much more like black magic. (Funnily enough, in physics the exact same problem is related to "degrees of freedom". The similarity doesn't end there, but I won't bore you with that. ;-)

(The term "inner magic", by the way, is not Larry's, as far as I know, if that is of some importance to you.)