Re: [dvd-discuss] SCC, Lexmark, and copyright versusreverse-engineering

["D. C. Sessions" <dvd(at)lumbercartel.com>]

On Tuesday 01 April 2003 08:58, John Zulauf wrote:
# I thought Phoenix did the reverse engineering and they were very careful
# about the clean room.  One team wrote a reference book about what they
# discovered from their RE efforts.  The other team implemented from that
# reference.  Nobody that had seen IBM PC BIOS code was allowed on the 
# development team.

That's a longer version of what I said: they derived the specifications
from the source (that's the book you mentioned) and the other team
implemented the specification.

# SCC did an incomplete RE job (not that I'm arguing a better one could
# have been done), and failed to realize (apparently) that the byte string
# passed from cartridge to printer was in fact code.
# 
# Now if IBM had made some signature part of the BIOS, implying that no
# other expression would be deemed valid by the CPU (eek, how to fix
# bugs?), then Phoenix would have had to either figure a way spoof the
# signature code (if they could even find the algorithm) or be
# out-of-luck.

Actually, that's what happened.  Some software looked for the letters
"IBM" at a certain ROM offset, so the clones had "IBM compatible"
in theirs.

# Though, especially since IBM was STILL under antitrust
# investigation (for tying HW and SW on mainframes) this would have raised
# some red flags both for the antitrust Judge (what was his name)
# overseeing the consent decree with IBM as yet another tying issue.  But
# in 1981 antitrust was a far less lenient than it is today.

You've noticed?

# "D. C. Sessions" wrote:
# > 
# > On Saturday 29 March 2003 16:01, microlenz@earthlink.net wrote:
# > # As they are. No one says that life must be easy or that you have to get a free
# > # lunch. If Compaq can RE the PC bios in the mid 80s, I doubt that this is much
# > # worse. IF the program is truly copyrightable (and I would have to be convinced
# > # of that), then it is still copyright infringement and the judges comments about
# > # access are irrelevant (he' splitting hairs)
# > 
# > When Compaq reverse-engineered the PC BIOS, they had
# > access to the complete source code of the original, from which
# > they derived the specifications.
# > 
# > I'd say that there's a major difference in difficulty there.
# > 
# > --
# > begin signature.exe
# > A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
# > Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
# > A: Top-posting.
# > Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet?
# 
# 
# 

-- 
begin signature.exe
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet?