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Re: Another simple reversing of OS X Foundation and CoreFoundation


From: Luboš Doležel
Subject: Re: Another simple reversing of OS X Foundation and CoreFoundation
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:28:15 +0200
User-agent: Roundcube Webmail/0.5

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:18:18 +0800, Maxthon Chan wrote:
Given that:

1) Apple did not patent Cocoa and/or their implementation of
CoreFoundation, and
2) GNUstep contains no Apple code

We will be good, as Apple have no reason to drag us into trouble. We
are not infringing any IP at all if that two conditions is met.

Just look at Mono which is a binary-compatible reimplementation of
Microsoft .net and they did not complain (and even eventually
advertising it to some extent).


In my country, we have a law that says you can reverse engineer any piece of code that you have a valid license for as long as you're doing it for one of the listed purposes (e.g. interoperability). Reverse engineering cannot be forbidden by any license.

You can copy the idea, but you cannot copy the code as is, as that would still be a copyright violation. So it is safer to write down what you've found and implement it later when you don't have the disassembly in your head any more.

*But* given Apple's legal adventures, I'd be more careful than that. All of above doesn't prevent big corporations from suing your ass off. So it's better not to brag about it, especially not in cases where it doesn't actually help GNUstep at all. I think Apple's public documentation suffices.

--
Luboš Doležel




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