[olug] OT: more Hans goodness

[Luke -Jr]

On Thursday 10 July 2008, William Langford wrote:
> Attempting to claim the ABI can't be reverse engineered is silly.
> Hardware hackers have clean roomed lots of nasty stuff. If a company
> would be interested in doing so is doubtful, however.

You can't reverse engineer an ABI when an ABI does not even exist. If you 
reverse-engineer the "ABI" (internal symbols) for Linux 2.6.25, your 
resulting code will break in 2.6.25.1 because, not having an ABI, it has 
changed.

> In terms of legality, what many (prominent or not) developers think
> doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
>
> While Greg K-H's attempt to solve the issue is admirable... "trust me
> I talked to anonymous clueful people" is less than convincing.

Then go hire some IP lawyers yourself. You and I debating this on a mailing 
list is far less than what prominent developers (copyright holders, even) 
think.