[Scummvm-devel] Re: SCUMM Engine

[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
-- 
-----------------------------------------------
Max Horn
Software Developer

email: <mailto:max at quendi.de>
phone: (+49) 6151-494890