Reverse engineering is usually considered a violation of proprietary software IP right (not sure the exact legal term)? I know at every company I've ever worked at I've been told to never under any circumstances attempt to decompile or reverse engineer another company's proprietary software product. Maybe that's just legal CYA but decompiling+documenting then re-implementing sure sounds like stealing to me...
In the United States, clean room reverse engineering is legal for interoperability purposes. In general reverse engineering is legal unless there is a contract involved prohibiting it.
Unless you’re reusing the original source code, there’s no copyright violation per se, simply functionality reimplemented in a compatible manner. The lengths that ReactOS goes to might actually be overkill, but no one can credibly claim the project has actually stolen anyone’s code.
Does a software license in this case count as a contract?
Moreover, interoperability is not the same as distribution no? Honestly ReactOS's lengths do not seem like overkill to me, quite the contrary. Even re-implementing an API is legally suspect these days (see: Oracle vs. Google re: Android). Copying the internals of a piece of software by having one person explain verbally exactly how it works to another person who translates that to code feels a lot more like stealing than that.
A EULA might but I’m not positive that is the case. That said, I would expect a business of any size to cover their ass and not bother without a compelling reason.
That said, look at the steps involved.
Person A had the original software in binary form, runs it through a decompiler. The decompiler is not going to reproduce the code precisely, but it will be enough for documentation purposes. They document the functionality in a separate document describing what is happening when the software is run.
Person B receives this document and writes their own code according to what it says. They need not have ever even used the original software or signed a EULA, and then Person A or C or whoever can go on to test compatibility. It is a lot of effort, but the end result is code where no one involved violates any laws. It’s interoperable, and because the code is original, Person B or the Project he works for can claim copyright and license it out on their own terms, in the case of ReactOS, it is an open source license.
Re: Oracle vs Google, this case does make the whole project potentially suspect these days, but if APIs are not copyrightable, then ReactOS should be firmly on the right side of the law. If APIs are copyrightable, then we can expect the Wine project to be taken down alongside ReactOS. More reason to hope Google prevails entirely, regardless of our own personal opinions of them.
For the contract portion of the EULA to be enforceable, you have to get the user to explicitly and willingly agree to it.
Tricking the user with a shrink-wrap license ("by opening this package you have agreed...") would not hold in court.
Asking users to click "I Agree" in installers also has dubious value due to the widespread practice of clicking these buttons to proceed without really reading the contract; their true intention was proceeding to the next question rather than entering any agreement.
In other words: if most reasonable persons wouldn't expect to be actually bound to the conditions listed in the contract, then Microsoft cannot effectively enforce them in a court.
“One line of cases follows ProCD v. Zeidenberg which held such contracts enforceable (see, e.g., Bowers v. Baystate Technologies[2]) and the other follows Klocek v. Gateway, Inc., which found the contracts at hand unenforceable (e.g., Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp.[3]), but did not comment on shrink wrap contracts as a whole.”
Couldn't that trivially be defeated by having that part of the work done somewhere that doesn't accept such shrink wrap contracts? Alternatively even just a different person than actually paid for it?
If I receive a box in the mail or an exe in an email along with a request to document it to what degree am I party to any contract with the developer? I received after all nothing from them.
You seem to have internalized ethics designed to maximize profit not happiness or utility.
Deliberate incompatibility is a lever that allows a degree of control that allows one to extract money both from end users and from companies that serve end users.
Having the ability to reverse engineer a compatible solution is a check on the maximum amount of rent seeking one is able to do before a competitor provides a more open or at least cheaper alternative that doesn't force one to entirely rip out existing components.
This is only like stealing if you believe a company has an inherent right to make a maximum profit without interference from competitors which is an interesting moral stance to take.
Reverse engineering is generally allowed. Trade secrets don't have a lot of protections. The reverse engineering + reimplementing route has precedent in the US, the Compaq vs IBM BIOS case.
Companies mostly have these rules to guard against copyright and patent lawsuits because there is no presumption of innocence beyond reasonable doubt in these in the US.
