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Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

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Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#61

Post by PieterH »

martinko wrote: post #60
PieterH wrote: post #38

My guess at the origins of this project... Firm somewhere far away where Microsoft's lawyers cannot reach (China?) wanted Skype capability in their product and paid this smart Russian guy to reverse-engineer the Skype client. Smart guy gets permission to open source it and publishes it with commercial license option with hopes of finding more such clients. Personally I'd not touch this with a 3-meter bargepole, becau…

> Personally I'd not touch this with a 3-meter bargepole, because I live in a country where people use copyright and trademark law to take people to court, yet it's an interesting project. You feel using it would open you up to a copyright claim?

If I used this in a commercial product, it would be trivial (absolutely trivial) for the owner of the original product to take me to court for illegal distribution of their copyrighted works, based on the argument that the code I was distributing (for profit!) was written by someone who (by own admission in public) had reverse-engineered the original product.

IANAL but I'd be willing to bet money on this.

The only questions would be (a) is the original product one that matters enough to protect in such a way and (b) does the owner of that original product have the money and lawyers to start such legal actions.

This isn't some random app. This is one of Microsoft's crown jewels we're talking about.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#62

Post by extra88 »

amelius wrote: post #17
mSparks wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like you expect something different from reversed Microsoft code.

I know you are probably joking, but didn't MS buy the code?

Yes, Microsoft bought Skype, it didn't create Skype. There have been many substantive changes since then (e.g. much less peer-to-peer in operation).

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#63

Post by jacquesm »

martinko wrote: post #60
PieterH wrote: post #38

My guess at the origins of this project... Firm somewhere far away where Microsoft's lawyers cannot reach (China?) wanted Skype capability in their product and paid this smart Russian guy to reverse-engineer the Skype client. Smart guy gets permission to open source it and publishes it with commercial license option with hopes of finding more such clients. Personally I'd not touch this with a 3-meter bargepole, becau…

> Personally I'd not touch this with a 3-meter bargepole, because I live in a country where people use copyright and trademark law to take people to court, yet it's an interesting project. You feel using it would open you up to a copyright claim?

It is a derivation.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#64

Post by jeff_petersen »

fnj wrote: post #55
mac01021 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. I guess I was saying that we, the Anglophone world, need to pick an equally effective word for this meaning. I think probably “xenophobic” is more accurate than “racist” in this case, but still not quite right.

The word "xenoracism" has actually been applied, but it strikes me as a make-do lashed-together word. "Xenotyping" is no good because it already has a precise scientific definition. "Stereotyping" ends up the best description, though it's less than satisfactorily insulting.

> "Stereotyping" ends up the best description, though it's less than satisfactorily insulting.

Why does it have to be insulting? Rather, why do you have to import shame from an unrelated activity to make your point? It seems to me like that trivializes racism and doesn't do very much to bolster this argument.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#65

Post by fungos »

andwur wrote: post #8

I haven't spent much time browsing through the source but the code quality and security is pretty dismal so far. Not to mention the confusing project structure. Magic numbers, ... and strings, all over the place [0]. Memory leak galore (debug code?) [1]. Probably buffer overflows all over the place, here's one I noticed [2]. I suspect others given the proliferation of opaque pointers and memcpy usage. [0] https://git…

To me this project looks like really a just reversed and mostly functional one and this is the quality of said projects, I've been there. He has disassembled, transcribed to a C project almost as-is and made it compile.

The developer may not have enough development experience to organize it decently or just rushed it online because of anxiety.

Anyway, very good resource for others if there still any interest at all at Skype compatibility or else, only missing the .idb with renamed subs and comments. :)

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#66

Post by striking »

Iv wrote: post #49
wolfgke wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's not clean room, then there's probably copyright violations. This is the law in the United States. From the links given in the readme file the authors are probably from Russia.

As a non-US citizen, I can't wait to see a world where a whole IT industry will exist without caring much about merchandability in the US.

Copyright extends beyond the US, due to certain treaties.

But yes, Antigua's IT industry could get very interesting if they get to keep the whole copyright haven thing going.

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#67

Post by skypeopensource »

andwur wrote: post #8

I haven't spent much time browsing through the source but the code quality and security is pretty dismal so far. Not to mention the confusing project structure. Magic numbers, ... and strings, all over the place [0]. Memory leak galore (debug code?) [1]. Probably buffer overflows all over the place, here's one I noticed [2]. I suspect others given the proliferation of opaque pointers and memcpy usage. [0] https://git…

Yes :-)

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#68

Post by semi-extrinsic »

nbaksalyar wrote: post #21
EugeneOZ wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My words are true. Our (russians) colloquial lexicon have tremendous amount of words from thieves jargon. Constitution in Russia have less meaning than thieves' laws. Our users, even programmers/hackers are trying to get free any software - it's kind of snobbery to use paid software in Russia. Maybe it's something wild for you, but it's reality in Russia.

I don't get your point. Why generalize over 140M people with your assumptions about illegal software usage and "thieve laws" in Russia in the topic about reverse engineering the Skype client? How does it even relate to Russia?

Generalizations are useful, because they allow us to efficiently reason about the world. Eschewing them because of the content-free statement that "everyone is unique" leads us to a worse, not better, situation. Of course, this does not mean we should allow blatant racism, but in the real world it is useful to say things that are true but not necessarily nice.

Or, if you want, you can stay in Katie-land:

https://youtu.be/b47wP_yMCf4

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#69

Post by BeefySwain »

PieterH wrote: post #59
jacquesm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telecommunications products should be based around open protocols. That Skype keeps their protocols to themselves should not be reason enough to send lawyers after software implementing interoperability after reverse engineering. Re-using the reverse engineered code is the problem, he should have simply used it to spec out the protocol and then use that spec to re-implement it.

One team documents the protocol as a spec. A second team takes the spec and writes implementations. The advantage of this for open source is that when the protocol changes, it's relatively simple for that first team to update the spec, and safe for the second team to update their code. This is legal and safe. It is how the first clone PCs survived even IBM's lawyers.

> One team documents the protocol as a spec. A second team takes the spec and writes implementations.

How is the first team compensated? or am I missing something?

>This is legal and safe. It is how the first clone PCs survived even IBM's lawyers.

Very interesting. Does anyone have a link to a write up on this? or at least have a place to start looking for info on it?

Re: Skypeopensource2 – Skype client based on reversing Skype 5.5

#70

Post by adekok »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #10
andwur wrote: post #8

I haven't spent much time browsing through the source but the code quality and security is pretty dismal so far. Not to mention the confusing project structure. Magic numbers, ... and strings, all over the place [0]. Memory leak galore (debug code?) [1]. Probably buffer overflows all over the place, here's one I noticed [2]. I suspect others given the proliferation of opaque pointers and memcpy usage. [0] https://git…

"How dare you show your project when it has flaws!"

A technical review of code isn't a personal attack. Please learn to tell the difference.
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