Re: Peter still in misery (was: Jan doesn't want Peter to know (was: Peter wants

--- In hercules-advocacy-F5Bj5G+ccuY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "commanonce" 
<philp@xxxx> wrote:
> >> 3 - Reverse engineering. Legal or not? Apparently so in some 
> places. 
> >> Read this months ACM Communications for an article arguing that 
it 
> >> should be allowed.
>  
> > It is my understanding that reverse engineering for
> > compatibility purposes is explicitly legal in many
> > (perhaps all) countries of the European Union.
> ------------------------------------------
> Article 6 of the 1991 European Communities Council Directive on the 
> Legal Protection of Computer Programs.  No L 122/42 Official 
Journal 
> of the European Communities 17.5.91
> 
>                  Article 6 - Decompilation
> 
> 1. The authorization of the rightholder shall not be required where 
> reproduction of the code and translation of its form within the 
> meaning of Article 4 (a) and (b) are indispensable to obtain the 
> information necessary to achieve the interoperability of an 
> independently created computer program with other programs, 
provided 
> that the following conditions are met:
> 
> 
> (a) these acts are performed by the licensee or by another person 
> having a right to use a copy of a program, or on their behalf by a 
> person authorized to to so;
> 
> (b) the information necessary to achieve interoperability has not 
> previously been readily available to the persons referred to in 
> subparagraph (a); and
> 
> (c) these acts are confined to the parts of the original program 
> vhich are necessary to achieve interoperability.
> 
> 2. The provisions of paragraph 1 shall not permit the information 
> obtained through its application:
> 
> (a) to be used for goals other than to achieve the interoperability 
> of the independently created computer program;
> 
> (b) to be given to others, except when necessary for the 
> interoperability of the independently created computer program; or
> 
> (c) to be used for the development, production or marketing of a 
> computer program substantially similar in its expression, or for 
any 
> other act which infringes copyright.
> 
> 3. In accordance with the provisions of the Berne Convention for 
the 
> protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the provisions of this 
> Article may not be interpreted in such a way as to allow its 
> application to be used in a manner which unreasonably prejudices 
the 
> right holder's legitimate interests or conflicts with a normal 
> exploitation of the computer program.

Sheesh... does this come with a free lawyer? 

Couple of points:

1. This Article concerns decompilation. As far as I'm aware, we 
haven't done any decompilation - have we? Hercules is hardware 
emulation. We've cloned S/390, not OS/390!

2. I don't know if this bears any relation to the true legal 
situation, but a fast, dirty, and wishful reading of the above leads 
me to wonder if it doesn't perhaps permit running of OS on Hercules 
for the purposes of compatibility-testing/developing *Hercules*, IF 
the person doing so already has a legal right to use OS (on, say, a 
PWD Flex machine). In the EU, of course.

Mike



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