Re: Major Java downfall?

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From           David Hopwood 
Date           Sat, 26 Jul 1997 22:28:12 +0100
Newsgroups     comp.lang.java.advocacy
Message-ID     <1997072622281274952@zetnet.co.uk>

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In message <5rat66$nlp@shell.monmouth.com>
        neil@shell.monmouth.com (Neil Aggarwal) writes:

> In article <33d80f03.1562605@news.infonex.net>,
> Mark Watson  wrote:
> >programming shops writing commercial applications.  If you
> >buy any software from a small company that goes out of
> >business (or refuses to support their software), then the
> >ability to de-compile libraries that are crucial to your own
> >programming projects seems important (and a legitimate
> >thing to do).

> I disagree. Unless you own rights to the source code (which is
> NOT grated by purchasing a license of a piece of software),
> decompiling code is not legitimate.

It's interesting to note that in Europe (i.e. where the decompilation
is done in Europe, regardless of the software's country of origin), it
is legal to decompile or otherwise reverse-engineer software for the
purpose of creating programs that are interoperable with it (i.e. use
compatible data formats or protocols). IIRC, this overrides any license
agreement.

If I can find the directive that states this (I'm sure I've seen it on
the web somewhere), I'll post a reference.

David Hopwood
david.hopwood@lmh.ox.ac.uk, hopwood@zetnet.co.uk