| EPL and reverse engineering [message #49187] |
Thu, 13 September 2007 11:58  |
Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Hi:
I am not looking for legal advice, but just personal opinions. :-)
Say that I downloaded a binary plugin that is licensed explicitly under the
EPL.
And that the author dies in a plane crash, losing the only copy of the
sources for ever. Or decides to stop distributing the sources.
Would the EPL rights granted by the author authorize me to reverse engineer
it?
and redistribute a derivative work under EPL (and copyright) from that
reverse engineered version?
--
Cheers, Philippe
http://EasyEclipse.org
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: EPL and reverse engineering [message #49295 is a reply to message #49261] |
Sat, 15 September 2007 02:12  |
| Eclipse User |
|
|
|
"Ed Merks" <merks@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:fccb3e$912$1@build.eclipse.org...
> Alex,
>
> Yes, I'm not sure it allows or disallows it. It seems in general though
> that EPL is allowing derivative work as long as you make the derivation
> public. One might argue that byte code or any code for that matter is a
> form of source and that therefore EPL allows you to derive your work
> from it. Lawyers must have so much fun with this kind of stuff!
> .
>
> Alex Blewitt wrote:
> > I'm not sure the EPL allows for reverse disassembly, does it? In any
case, doesn't the EPL apply to the source and binary in combination?
> >
> > Mind you, there are a number of plug-ins not distributed by Eclipse that
might fall into this category. There's a bunch of stuff on SourceForge, for
a start.
> >
> > Alex.
> >
Alex, Ed:
Thanks your for your comments.
I think that gives me enough to form my own opinion.
The EPL makes references to source code form and object code form.
There is no mention of reverse engineering but it seems to me that it is
implied that when you have the binaries, you MUST have access to the
sources.
So in that context, it seems to me that whether or not the sources are in
fact obtained from redistribution, or reversed engineered (if the
redistribution was not available) does not seem really relevant. The only
thing the original author loose by not redistributing the sources are the
copyright mentions that may have existed in the source code (in the case of
decompiled Java code). Too bad if instead of dying in the hypothetical plane
crash, they in fact had chosen to partially respect the EPL.
--
Cheers, Philippe
|
|
|
| Re: EPL and reverse engineering [message #49350 is a reply to message #49295] |
Fri, 28 September 2007 02:19 |
| Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Any more opinions on the topic?
--
Cheers, Philippe
http://www.nexb.com - http://eclipse.org/ve - http://eclipse.org/atf -
http://easyeclipse.org - http://phpeclipse.net
"Philippe Ombredanne" <pombredanne@nexb.com> wrote in message
news:fcft4d$m0j$1@build.eclipse.org...
> "Ed Merks" <merks@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message
> news:fccb3e$912$1@build.eclipse.org...
> > Alex,
> >
> > Yes, I'm not sure it allows or disallows it. It seems in general though
> > that EPL is allowing derivative work as long as you make the derivation
> > public. One might argue that byte code or any code for that matter is a
> > form of source and that therefore EPL allows you to derive your work
> > from it. Lawyers must have so much fun with this kind of stuff!
> > .
> >
> > Alex Blewitt wrote:
> > > I'm not sure the EPL allows for reverse disassembly, does it? In any
> case, doesn't the EPL apply to the source and binary in combination?
> > >
> > > Mind you, there are a number of plug-ins not distributed by Eclipse
that
> might fall into this category. There's a bunch of stuff on SourceForge,
for
> a start.
> > >
> > > Alex.
> > >
>
> Alex, Ed:
> Thanks your for your comments.
> I think that gives me enough to form my own opinion.
> The EPL makes references to source code form and object code form.
> There is no mention of reverse engineering but it seems to me that it is
> implied that when you have the binaries, you MUST have access to the
> sources.
> So in that context, it seems to me that whether or not the sources are in
> fact obtained from redistribution, or reversed engineered (if the
> redistribution was not available) does not seem really relevant. The only
> thing the original author loose by not redistributing the sources are the
> copyright mentions that may have existed in the source code (in the case
of
> decompiled Java code). Too bad if instead of dying in the hypothetical
plane
> crash, they in fact had chosen to partially respect the EPL.
>
>
> --
> Cheers, Philippe
>
>
|
|
|
Powered by
FUDForum. Page generated in 0.05599 seconds
Home