[ros-dev] What Happened--It Happened Lets Get To Work.

[Peter Dolding]

Reverse engineering.

USA states clear rules.

A person who pulls appear the code cannot take part in creating the new 
code or device.  Ie Document how it work.

This rule does not change where ever you are.

Reverse engineering cases have been fort and lost in most countries 
because developer not been able that they did not copy X section of code 
directly from what they were Reverse engineering.  Ie since the code 
matched close enough it was pick since they had seen inside the program 
they copied and then tried to hide it.  USA method prevents this.  The 
coder never saw inside the program so it must be a fluke.

Legal or not is not the issue it if you can prove that you have not 
breached copyright in a court of law.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Has never been tested in a court 
of law.  Australian Government had something simpler for about two 
months since then fair use clauses have been added allowing reverse 
engineering and other methods of bypass with restrictions of course you 
cannot set out with the reason bar to break DRM but setting out to 
bypass to allow legal backups or for compatibility is fine or to bypass 
some other forms of stupidity.  Ie region codes fall into stupidity.  I 
by a legal copy of something bring it home then cannot play it that is 
stupidity.  DRM is not allowed to create trade barriers if so it illegal 
so completely open to attack.

Simple example provide it.

Completely Open Source Player.  Linux kernel ...
Only part closed kinda was a public key.

The license on the key was a killer.
[quote]
You here by agree to use only approved software on any machine that is 
   use with this public key. No existing or third party data allowed on 
the playing device along with the public key except for approved 
software and file created by approved software as part of approved 
software operation.
[/quote]
Now a pirate that does not care about the license does not have to 
format their computer to watch the video.  Law abiding person has to.

Note approved software only contains a player not a converter.  Pirate 
is free do what they like and law abiding is hurt majorly.  The addon's 
in Australia would allow above to be got around legally.

Just give this to your government.  They realize there is a flaw in the 
DMCA and its not friendly.

We have a mess.  Fighting over what rules apply here apply there solve 
nothing.  Laws that have not been to court may or may not hold.

Lets take a really good look at the source tree.
-Insert new version of externally source sections.
Leave documentation so next update of this section is simpler.
Note my Zlib patch posted to ros-dev is a requirement 1.1.4 has known 
security problems.  Most likely there are more.
-Locate sections that need documentation written.
Rbuild is one of these things  that needs documentation for new 
developers.  It confused the heck out of me.  I am not a documentation 
writer.  I woffle to much and suffer from dislexer so sometime 
documentation I can read no one else can(yes it can pass a grammar and 
spell checker).
-Find features that external libs need added to improve them inside 
Reactos to produce a better Reactos.
Mesa could do with a opengl version change option.  Ie no hardware accel 
and low processor user drop it back to version 1.2 opengl.  Ie 
adjustable 1.2 takes a lot less process to render than 1.5.

Developers could work on adding these features while main tree is 
completing audit.  Developers with nothing to do get upset.

I guess most of the developers in Reactos that this first time they have 
had to handle a Audit.  Key to handling a Audit effectively is not to 
remain frozen at the same point in time.  But to move forward in the 
process of Auditing.  If have access to external developers get them 
working on parts that will be required in future as soon as able 
normally requiring feature requests.

Peter Dolding