re OS X hack sites] tirade FAVORING reverse engineering!]

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [was re OS X hack sites] tirade FAVORING reverse engineering!
Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 11:38:19 -0800
From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
To: dave () farber net
CC: Dan Shoop <shoop () iwiring net>
References: <43F9BEB8.8090609 () farber net>

>  >Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2006 12:07:00 -0500
>  >From: Dan Shoop <shoop () iwiring net>
> ...
> This is a company protecting their assets (software) from reverse
> engineering and modification to run on hardware which they do not
> support....

Oh NO!  Have we really come this far?  So quickly?!

Is someone really ACCEPTING that reverse engineering should be
prohibited?!  (That is, someone other than massive corporations'
thought-monopoly patent attorneys.)

While a tech columnist in the late '80's, I received a "back-channel"
copy of a "radical" proposal by IBM, "secretly" outlining how they
might go about quietly getting WIPO to -- for the first time in
history -- outlaw reverse engineering.  At the time, it was
considered a wildly radical idea.

(The World Intellectual Property Organization is the unelected UN
agency that "harmonizes" i.p. law between nations, administering
more'n 20 international i.p. treaties, to assure equal repression for
all.)

Hell, it's only been a bit more'n 20 years since software was even
first deemed patentable!

In the 40-or-so years before that, such monopolies were NOT
permitted.  Which didn't seem to harm the likes of IBM, AT&T, Bell
Labs, Digital Equipment, H-P nor any of the other companies that grew
fat and rich offering products including software that was NOT
patentable.  That notably included the first ten years or so, of both
Apple and Microsoft (which got its start in operating systems using a
reverse-engineered version of the then-most-popular CP/M operating
system ... which, itself, was modeled after Digital's old TOPS-10 OS).

And in fact, ALL of those companies happily and routinely
reverse-engineered competitors' products -- fueling innovation and
speeding improvements, for the benefit of all.

But now ... we see folks not just accepting the repression of
software patents.  NOW we see 'em even just ASSUMING that reverse
engineering SHOULD be prohibited!

Sheesh!  If we still had spring-driven mechanical clocks, no doubt
their manufacturers would now zealously sue any time someone offered
instructions about how to open their "proprietary" clock-cases, much
less offering guidance as to their detailed operation!

And I certainly hope that no one ever dares to disassemble their
bicycle, to see how its gearing works!

--jim

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