[Scummvm-devel] Re: SCUMM Engine

David Given dg at cowlark.com
Wed Jun 26 04:46:03 CEST 2002


On Tue, 2002-06-25 at 20:15, Max Horn wrote:
[...]
> 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.

Now I come to think of it, Ludvig did tell me he'd done this.

> In addition, this procesess falls under the DMCA's rules, so at least 
> in the US it might indeed be illegal.

I was under the impression that reverse engineering was legal for
compatibility purposes, but that may just be the UK and/or Europe, or
possibly I'm just wrong.

Hmm.

These people make and sell a decompiler:

http://www.backerstreet.com/rec/rec.htm

...and they have this interesting message at the bottom of the page:

    There is a lot of discussion on the legality of decompilation.
    Decompiler tools have been available for a variety of platforms for
    a long time. Decompilers, along with other tools like debuggers,
    binary editors, disassemblers etc. should only be used when the
    owner of a program has the legal right to reverse engineer the
    program.
    
    It has been established by the US and other countries courts that it
    is legal to use decompilers under the fair use clause of copyright
    law.
    
    To find out when it is legal to use a decompiler, you should read
    the text of the following cases:
    
        * Sega Enterprises LTD v. Accolade, Inc.
          [http://www.law.seattleu.edu/chonm/Cases/sega.html]
        * Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.
    
    Also read a discussion on the legality of using an emulator to run a
    binary program on a different host.
    [http://www.cris.com/~Twist/atari800win/legal.shtml]
    
    Backer Street Software does not support the use of reverse
    engineering tools for illegal purposes.

Of course, it's on the Internet so it must be true.

-- 
+- David Given --McQ-+ "A character is considered to be a letter if and
|  dg at cowlark.com    | only if it is a letter or digit (§20.5.16) but is
not
| (dg at tao-group.com) | a digit (§20.5.14)." --- Sun Java language
+- www.cowlark.com --+ specification
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