[Scummvm-devel] Re: SCUMM Engine

[Per Wigren]

I thought they disassembled the game-data-files and not the gameengine 
itself.. 


Tuesday 25 June 2002 21.15 skrev Max Horn:
> At 11:52 Uhr +0100 25.06.2002, David Given wrote:
> >On Tue, 2002-06-25 at 11:41, Nicolas Noble wrote:
> >[...]
> >
> >>  I can provide a non-US mirror. 155Mbps bandwith is enough for ya? ;-)
> >> But I'll offer it only if the worst happend, since it will be on my
> >> "private" resources at work.
> >
> >Ah, yes, that will do nicely.
> >
> >...
> >
> >Personally, I don't think LucasArts could, legally, shut us down; we're
> >*not* using any of their IP, as ScummVM is a clean-room reimplementation
> >from the published documentation, i.e. the games. (If they could shut us
> >down, then clean-room Java implementations become legally suspect and a
> >lot of companies go out of business.)
>
> AFAIK this is not correct. ScummVM is not a clean room
> implementation. A clean room implementation requires the people
> performing it to only use the publicaly documented information about
> the thing being cloned. In addition, it's OK to look at the behaviour
> of the target, e.g. in our case that would mean playing the actual
> games to verify the behaviour matches that of our own engine etc.
> However, unless I am seriously mistaken, ScummVM was not done this
> way. In large parts it is based on disassembling the engines of
> Monkey Island and other LucasArts Scumm games. Thus it is *not* a
> clean room implementation.
>
> In addition, this procesess falls under the DMCA's rules, so at least
> in the US it might indeed be illegal.
>
> Of course IANAL. If the above contains factual mistakes, please
> correct me, I don't claim I got all of this right, and certainly
> would be happy if I am mistaken :-)
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Max