New subject: Reverse engineering court decision

6 Feb 2001


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On Tue, 6 Feb 2001, Patrik Stridvall wrote:
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Patrik,
You are most likely correct.  Eventually the court system 
will get their
head out of their ass and figure this out.
I hope so.
There's optimism for you - they've had their heads there for 
years, why
change now? They're just getting comfortable...
What do you mean? Who are getting comfortable? The courts?
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At the moment it 
seems to me
like its way up in there and they are going "Damn, it's
dark in here".
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Well, since the DMCA IMHO is logically inconsistant, that
is not very
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suprising. I interpret Judge Kaplan opinion in the DeCSS as "I don't
really understand this, but if I blame it on Congress and give the
plaintiff the victory I will probably look less a fool in
the eyes of
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my peers".
Perhaps. Some of the Slashdot comments on the matter won't 
have helped,
though...
With peers I was refering to fellow and especially superior court
Judges not just anybody that criticized him.
What Judge Kaplan basicly said was this is, judging from the letter of
the law, what Congress meant and if if they didn't mean this,
they should have put it more clearly and if so it is their fault 
not mine. Shifting blame is quite popular in all sectors of
society. :-)
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Even my dad could easily see the argument that
restricting someone from writing a program is really
really braindead
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(although he has done coding way back in the day).  His 
response was that
eventually the court system will figure it out and it'll be 
over and done
with.  Seems to be much the same as your response.
Yes, approximately, but don't forget that in the worst case laws can
be changed and in the meantime enforcing it will be close to
impossible.
Indeed. It'll probably survive for a while, but with more and 
more holes
being cut...
More holes? It is already has holes big as barn doors. :-)
One intresting aspect concerning Wine is the 
DRM (Digital Rights Management) that Slashdot
reported that Microsoft are going to add to Windows.
If we implement it is Wine we are not trying to circumvent
it quite the opposite we are trying to to make it possible
enforce it. ;-)
Of course a one line patch making a critical function
always return TRUE or something might be able to disable
it for people that don't like it. :-)

RE: Reverse engineering court decision