Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tektronix!orca!tekecs!frip!andrew
From: andrew@frip.gwd.tek.com (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Crypt algorithm status.. one more time
Message-ID: <10058@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Date: 10 Jun 88 00:26:03 GMT
References: <302@eagle_snax.UUCP> <5776@megaron.arizona.edu>
Sender: andrew@tekecs.TEK.COM
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville, Oregon
Lines: 27

[]

	"I was told ... that you can't copy code but you may
	reimplement the idea contained in the code and further more,
	you may do so by sitting down with the, say, unix code as your
	guide.  You could not copy the code but you could look at the
	code to see how they did it."

With regard specifically to Unix, you were told wrong.  Unix source
code is protected primarily by trade secret law, and (recently)
secondarily by copyright law.  In theory, at least, you agreed to
uphold AT&T's Unix trade secrets before you were given access to the
source code; if you didn't, the entity that gave you access is at
fault.  (In my case, I agreed as part of signing my new-employee
agreement, which includes wording in which I agree to abide by all
company contracts.)

Trade secret law explicitly prohibits using the secrets in the sort of
"reverse engineering" that you describe.

Whether copyright law prohibits this is a much more murky question.
You could argue that the resulting new code is a "derived work" and the
property of the copyright holder of the original code.  You could also
argue that it isn't.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (andrew%tekecs.tek.com@relay.cs.net)   [ARPA]