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French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

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Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#41

Post by nraynaud »

macmac wrote: post #35
xorblurb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This French law existed before. The EU directive probably comes from the preexisting French law.

As far as I can tell the "French law" would be Article L122-6-1 of Code de la propriété intellectuelle which is dated 10 May 1994. The Eu Software Directive was first enacted in 1991. The text of the French law is almost verbatim the text of the directive.

It's even more explicit than the dates, the article was created by this law: "Loi n° 94-361 du 10 mai 1994 portant mise en oeuvre de la directive (C. E. E.) n° 91-250 du Conseil des communautés européennes en date du 14 mai 1991 concernant la protection juridique des programmes d'ordinateur et modifiant le code de la propriété intellectuelle"

edit: link http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexteArticle.do;jsession...

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#42

Post by panzi »

nraynaud wrote: post #11
username42 wrote: post #3

Sometimes, we can be proud to be french ;-) For interoperability purpose, "reverse engineering is a legal practice, and that the distribution of software using a protocol found in this way is not illegal"

It's a bit more complicated, you can reverse-engineer if the company is not willing to give the protocol, for interoperability purpose only and you are not allowed to publish the raw information you obtained during the reverse, but only a new interoperable product. Journalistic treatment has probably distorted the facts so someone should probably go read the actual decision.

What do you mean by "raw information"? Can you publish a detailed protocol specification?

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#44

Post by naterator »

nraynaud wrote: post #11
username42 wrote: post #3

Sometimes, we can be proud to be french ;-) For interoperability purpose, "reverse engineering is a legal practice, and that the distribution of software using a protocol found in this way is not illegal"

It's a bit more complicated, you can reverse-engineer if the company is not willing to give the protocol, for interoperability purpose only and you are not allowed to publish the raw information you obtained during the reverse, but only a new interoperable product. Journalistic treatment has probably distorted the facts so someone should probably go read the actual decision.

Further along the lines of what panzi is asking, could you publish OSS that contains code that would make obvious how to interact with the protocol?

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#45

Post by nraynaud »

naterator wrote: post #44
nraynaud wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit more complicated, you can reverse-engineer if the company is not willing to give the protocol, for interoperability purpose only and you are not allowed to publish the raw information you obtained during the reverse, but only a new interoperable product. Journalistic treatment has probably distorted the facts so someone should probably go read the actual decision.

Further along the lines of what panzi is asking, could you publish OSS that contains code that would make obvious how to interact with the protocol?

http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do;jsessioni...

Hard to say, probably no from what I read here, but I don't know what the past decisions were.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#46

Post by jefm »

bpizzi wrote: post #31
marincounty wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problems with your country. Any country that ties traffic infractions to income is fine with me. I heard most of your schooling is free to? The French have a lot we(USA) should look into.

French school isn't free, you're just basically paying it afterwards, threw many taxes including personnal income based taxes.

I'm french and paying taxes so that all children - including those from underprivileged environments - have, at least in theory, access to a free education is one thing I'm quite proud of.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#47

Post by slig »

ars wrote: post #28
cynwoody wrote: post #2

Reverse engineering of protocols should be as American as the First Amendment!

I'm pretty sure it's legal in the US as well. The gold method is two teams: One reverse engineers and writes documentation, and the second team implements based on the documentation and never sees the original. The question is if it's legal to talk to the skype servers this way.....

This is known as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#48

Post by fulafel »

nraynaud wrote: post #11
username42 wrote: post #3

Sometimes, we can be proud to be french ;-) For interoperability purpose, "reverse engineering is a legal practice, and that the distribution of software using a protocol found in this way is not illegal"

It's a bit more complicated, you can reverse-engineer if the company is not willing to give the protocol, for interoperability purpose only and you are not allowed to publish the raw information you obtained during the reverse, but only a new interoperable product. Journalistic treatment has probably distorted the facts so someone should probably go read the actual decision.

Huh, what law would you break by publishing the reverse engineered details? They're not protected by copyright or patents. Do you mean it's possible for a court to uphold some license or contract terms where you promised not to do it?

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#49

Post by smtddr »

kleiba wrote: post #16
macmac wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many reasons to be proud to be French, but since the French law is just an implementation of an EU directive this is hardly one of them.

Frankly, I never understood why anyone should be proud because they happen to be of a certain nationality.

Probably a defensive reaction to all the negative comments made about a nationality... and to prevent the children(and even adults) of said nationality from internalizing the negativity. In short, to provide balance.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#50

Post by shin_lao »

kleiba wrote: post #16
macmac wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many reasons to be proud to be French, but since the French law is just an implementation of an EU directive this is hardly one of them.

Frankly, I never understood why anyone should be proud because they happen to be of a certain nationality.

Why is it so strange to be proud of the blessings of good fortune?

If you are born beautiful, can't you be proud of it?

If you are part of an ancient and rich civilization, can't you be proud of it?

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