ReactOS and Legal Parallels

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PurpleGurl
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ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by PurpleGurl »

I was going to post this as part of another post, but figured it might be off-topic.

Something of note is that some of the policies here run parallel to laws of the land (at least US law). For instance, in law, there is the doctrine of the "fruit of the poisonous tree." That means that not only illegally-obtained evidence is not permitted in court, neither is anything that requires that illegal evidence. However, if it can be proven that the other information and evidence would be inevitably discovered, then it would be permissible. For instance, lets say a cop is working a case and visit a suspect. They have the right to view or examine anything that is in plain sight in the front room, but they cannot go into other rooms uninvited nor open anything. So they might be invited in and find drugs or an illegal weapon, and they could arrest them for that. But they cannot go rifling through anyone's things unless the suspect gives clear consent of their own free will, or there is a search warrant. Now, lets suppose a cop is looking for a murder weapon and finds one without a search warrant. The gun or whatever would be disqualified as evidence. However, if other officers were to find witnesses who said they saw the suspect in question with that gun, then the prosecution could argue inevitable discovery if the witnesses are credible enough. To make that stick, there probably should be some other physical evidence. For instance, any purchase or registration records for the weapon in question showing it matched the make and gauge of the gun used in the crime and that the defendant possessed it.

So how does that relate to us? It is similar to our "tainted code" doctrine. Not only is the person who disassembled the software tainted, any code they produce is presumed to be tainted as well. Now, for a few things, it arguable wouldn't matter as there is only one logical way to do it. But for the sake of withstanding scrutiny, that situation should be truly "independent invention," meaning that someone else reaches the same conclusions on their own with no ties to the other. In this case, it would mean no ties to Microsoft code, whether legally (worked for them or was a qualifying research kernel user), or illegally (viewing illegally leaked source code or directly accessing code that was obtained in ways that violate the licensing terms).
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by dizt3mp3r »

...and preferably never damaged by the experience of having to use Microsoft software in the first place :D

Apologies.
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PurpleGurl
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by PurpleGurl »

dizt3mp3r wrote:...and preferably never damaged by the experience of having to use Microsoft software in the first place :D

Apologies.
LOL! But then it would be hard to write for ROS if you never used any Microsoft software, though admittedly not impossible. I once used color commands while coding with a monochrome monitor. I called it "coding blind" since I had no way to test it on the target hardware and just assumed it worked. When I later upgraded to VGA, it worked as expected.
hbelusca
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by hbelusca »

One could also question how Linux was created... (just saying ^^)
erkinalp
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by erkinalp »

color commands while coding with a monochrome monitor
Did it not harm the mono monitor in question if had been executed?
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PurpleGurl
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by PurpleGurl »

hbelusca wrote:One could also question how Linux was created... (just saying ^^)
Touche. I am sure some involved did have Unix experience. But was the goal ever 100% compatibility? Or along that vein is DOS. Really, that was a reimplementation of CPM for the 8086 family, unless I am mistaken. CPM was 8-bit and for the 8080 CPU.
erkinalp wrote:
color commands while coding with a monochrome monitor
Did it not harm the mono monitor in question if had been executed?
No. It was just color text. The Hercules card simply converted the underlying calls to what it could display. But if it were graphics, the software would need to detect the type of display and go to Herc mode rather than CGA. Other than that, the card would do half-toning and shading to try to approximate things. Quick Basic would have initialized the correct graphics mode for the adapter. I forgot the mode numbers an all that, like maybe mode 3 vs. mode 7 or whatever. Where people ran into trouble would be trying to hook CGA to EGA or EGA to CGA. There are a few electrical differences there, despite both using DB-9 connectors. CGA only had 3 wires to access the subpixels, and the ground was used as a return. EGA had separate grounds (not connected on CGA). I don't remember if the separate grounds were what varied the intensity or what. But that could still work, since the RGB wires would still light up the electron guns when the ground wire is used instead of the separate return (though that might limit the range of available colors). But the more concerning difference is the resolution and scan rate. A CGA monitor is a modified television set, just with no tuner, sound, RF, IF stage, NTSC decoding, etc. Other than that, there is still the 512 scan lines, 60 Hz vertical refresh, and 15,750 Hz horizontal refresh. Now, EGA operated at a 22 KHz horizontal scan rate, so that is where the main trouble is, since that could heat up the yoke coil and flyback transformer. As for Hercules, they might have operated around 18 KHz, or at least when in Herc mode (I think it was all the time, since I'd have heard it at the time I was into this, as I once could hear 15.750 KHz). However, there is a separate monochrome pin in the plug and there would be no display if HGA/MDA were swapped with CGA/EGA. In some cases, exchanging CGA and EGA would work (early implementation of multisync). Now, most SVGA monitors were multisync, or at least tri-sync, allowing not only 640x480, but also 800x600 and 1024x768 without damaging the monitor.

Back to the original topic, I could have used a better example. I mean, what if the police had found a diary that gave the location of the murder weapon. So if the diary was found as part of an illegal search, the gun it led investigators to would not be allowed in court, since illegal evidence was required to find it. So if the diary is out, so is the gun. But if a prosecutor had other proof leading to the gun that didn't rely on the diary, then the gun could be presented as evidence. So if a credible witness that the person had or used the gun was found, and they agreed to testify, then that might be enough to allow the gun back in as evidence. But even then, like I said, other evidence should ideally be presented to, such as records of gun ownership.
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by dizt3mp3r »

Just put the gun analogy down and walk away. We have you surrounded.
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mametoc
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by mametoc »

By "ReactOS and Legal Parallels" inmediately i got in mind the MS-DOS "clones", and strangely none of them privative companies release as free/open source.
PurpleGurl
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by PurpleGurl »

mametoc wrote:By "ReactOS and Legal Parallels" inmediately i got in mind the MS-DOS "clones", and strangely none of them privative companies release as free/open source.
Oh yes. I nearly forgot about the legal battles with Microsoft and DR-DOS.
erkinalp
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by erkinalp »

mametoc wrote:privative companies
Privative is the un- prefix in English.
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-favors open source of Windows 10 under GPL2
mametoc
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Re: ReactOS and Legal Parallels

Post by mametoc »

erkinalp wrote:
mametoc wrote:privative companies
Privative is the un- prefix in English.
Right, thanks, some months whitout write in english and=*oxyd.
PurpleGurl wrote:
mametoc wrote:By "ReactOS and Legal Parallels" inmediately i got in mind the MS-DOS "clones", and strangely none of them privative companies release as free/open source.
Oh yes. I nearly forgot about the legal battles with Microsoft and DR-DOS.
I think is a very simple and clear historical example for stop people talking: "ReactOS is illegal", (but i assume not much known fact).
Last edited by Z98 on Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: 6. Do not double/triple/etc post.
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