The MS guy says there was no public NT internals doc. However many people refer to VAX/VMS Internals and Data Structures as being very similar. Both were architected by DNC.
A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
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Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#32In 2006 ReactOS halted all developments because of accusations like this. After a year long effort there was found to be no use of Microsoft source code in ReactOS. ( https://www.reactos.org/reset-reboot-restart-legal-issues-an... ) From what I understand a lot of the kernel work was done by clean-room reverse engineering. One person decompiles and documents the system and another re-implements given the documentatio…
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Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#33In 2006 ReactOS halted all developments because of accusations like this. After a year long effort there was found to be no use of Microsoft source code in ReactOS. ( https://www.reactos.org/reset-reboot-restart-legal-issues-an... ) From what I understand a lot of the kernel work was done by clean-room reverse engineering. One person decompiles and documents the system and another re-implements given the documentatio…
Reverse engineering is usually considered a violation of proprietary software IP right (not sure the exact legal term)? I know at every company I've ever worked at I've been told to never under any circumstances attempt to decompile or reverse engineer another company's proprietary software product. Maybe that's just legal CYA but decompiling+documenting then re-implementing sure sounds like stealing to me...
Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#34In 2006 ReactOS halted all developments because of accusations like this. After a year long effort there was found to be no use of Microsoft source code in ReactOS. ( https://www.reactos.org/reset-reboot-restart-legal-issues-an... ) From what I understand a lot of the kernel work was done by clean-room reverse engineering. One person decompiles and documents the system and another re-implements given the documentatio…
Is that really clean-room, though? (Note that "clean-room" is not a term in US copyright law, it's just a technique that certain people hope results in a work that is not a derivative of whatever they're reimplementing.)
If I learn a pop song, and sing it and accompany myself on the piano, and someone else transcribes it, then two things are true: first, of course it will result in identical melodies and chord progressions, and second, of course (it seems to me) this is a derivative work and there's no way you can say its copyright is independent. On the other hand, if I learn a pop song, and then teach the fundamentals of songwriting to someone, and they write a song with a I-V-vi-IV progression with angsty lyrics about an estranged lover, no matter how much it resembles existing pop songs in intent, there's a much stronger argument for independent invention.
A "clean-room" approach to determine a specification where none exists is sound - e.g., if you're developing a driver for a piece of hardware which only has a proprietary driver, you can run the driver under instrumentation and see what it does, and then write your own driver that twiddles hardware in the same way but takes its own approach to implementation. A "clean-room" approach to determine internals feels less sound to me: if you're disassembling the code to determine structure layout and naming, aren't you really just transforming the code into an overly-detailed natural language representation, then back into code?
(To be clear, I don't know if this is what ReactOS does/did, I just think that this "clean-room" defense doesn't hold super strongly, or in other words, that if this is what ReactOS does/did, it can be true both that ReactOS believes they did a clean-room reimplementation and that it's an infringement of NT's copyrights, despite a lot of hard work by the ReactOS devs.)
Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#35I have always been confused as to what level of reverse engineering is legally acceptable in this case. Is having a sneak peak at one of the win32 dlls with IDA or Radare allowed? Or, are you expected to re-invent the wheel based on documentation and observed behaviour? In the case of the former, how can it be conclusively legally proven that it was not reverse engineered (from machine code)?
In the U.S. it is perfectly legal to reverse anything that you obtained legally.
Reversing is one thing, distributing copies of reverse engineered IP is another. I am pretty sure that is not a good idea unless the terms under which you obtained the product explicitly allow it.
Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#36In 2006 ReactOS halted all developments because of accusations like this. After a year long effort there was found to be no use of Microsoft source code in ReactOS. ( https://www.reactos.org/reset-reboot-restart-legal-issues-an... ) From what I understand a lot of the kernel work was done by clean-room reverse engineering. One person decompiles and documents the system and another re-implements given the documentatio…
Reverse engineering is usually considered a violation of proprietary software IP right (not sure the exact legal term)? I know at every company I've ever worked at I've been told to never under any circumstances attempt to decompile or reverse engineer another company's proprietary software product. Maybe that's just legal CYA but decompiling+documenting then re-implementing sure sounds like stealing to me...
In the United States, clean room reverse engineering is legal for interoperability purposes. In general reverse engineering is legal unless there is a contract involved prohibiting it.
Unless you’re reusing the original source code, there’s no copyright violation per se, simply functionality reimplemented in a compatible manner. The lengths that ReactOS goes to might actually be overkill, but no one can credibly claim the project has actually stolen anyone’s code.
Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#37The researcher is unable to name any data structure in the source file. If -- as he claims -- it's littered with them, this should be easy to prove.
His shock that this could be a clean room implementation would be meaningful, except that the WINE project has successfully clean-room reverse engineered much of the Win32 API (including private stuff) by observing how programs use them. Literally no one wants to read Microsoft code anyway; knowing them, it's probably horrendous.
Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#38Comments like these are eerily similar to what Microsoft had been saying for years about Linux - at best they had been infringing on patents but I seem to also recall accusations of the kernel containing proprietary Windows source code. This is just one individuals opinion but I would be really interested in seeing them provide more specifics - especially given the amount of MS source that has leaked/been open sourced over the years.
Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#39I tried ReactOS recently. Got a BSOD trying to eject a CD. Lost interest.
Well at least they implemented Microsoft's best known feature (The BSOD).
Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”
#40In 2006 ReactOS halted all developments because of accusations like this. After a year long effort there was found to be no use of Microsoft source code in ReactOS. ( https://www.reactos.org/reset-reboot-restart-legal-issues-an... ) From what I understand a lot of the kernel work was done by clean-room reverse engineering. One person decompiles and documents the system and another re-implements given the documentatio…
Is that really clean-room, though? (Note that "clean-room" is not a term in US copyright law, it's just a technique that certain people hope results in a work that is not a derivative of whatever they're reimplementing.) If I learn a pop song, and sing it and accompany myself on the piano, and someone else transcribes it, then two things are true: first, of course it will result in identical melodies and chord progre…
Clean room re-implementations have stood up to many court challenges through the years, and are interoperability is explicitly permitted under things like the DMCA.