legality of releasing new strelka versions question

[Uri Blass]

I wonder if it is legal to release new version of strelka together with source code.

There are some possibilities:

1)it was illegal to release strelka2 source and people are not allowed to release source that is based on strelka.
2)it was illegal to release strelka2 source but people who release source that is based on it do not do something illegal because the illegal thing was already done(assuming that changing strelka2 is not based on hidden rybka's code)
3)it was legal to release strelka2 because Vas allowed to use rybka beta with no restrictions and the fact that he did not mean to the use rybka in the way that osipov use it is his problem and Vas should learn to be more careful in the future in what he allows.
It is even legal to sell modified strelka without agreement of Vas because Vas allowed to use Rybka with no restrictions.

I wonder if there is some case when person who allowed to use his exe file with no restrictions won in court against somebody who did something similiar to Osipov by reverse engineering.

If there is a case when it happened in the past then
I would like to know about it and I would like to see a link.

Uri

[Rolf]

I wonder if it is legal to release new version of strelka together with source code.

There are some possibilities:

1)it was illegal to release strelka2 source and people are not allowed to release source that is based on strelka.
2)it was illegal to release strelka2 source but people who release source that is based on it do not do something illegal because the illegal thing was already done(assuming that changing strelka2 is not based on hidden rybka's code)
3)it was legal to release strelka2 because Vas allowed to use rybka beta with no restrictions and the fact that he did not mean to the use rybka in the way that osipov use it is his problem and Vas should learn to be more careful in the future in what he allows.
It is even legal to sell modified strelka without agreement of Vas because Vas allowed to use Rybka with no restrictions.

I wonder if there is some case when person who allowed to use his exe file with no restrictions won in court against somebody who did something similiar to Osipov by reverse engineering.

If there is a case when it happened in the past then
I would like to know about it and I would like to see a link.

Uri

I wonder why you should bother in any direction at all. To me it looks like a green herring. You will see it soon enough...

[Alexander Schmidt]

I wonder if there is some case when person who allowed to use his exe file with no restrictions won in court against somebody who did something similiar to Osipov by reverse engineering.

Hi Uri,

I guess it depends on where the court stands. I don't have an example regarding decompiling, but when I look on other court decissions, it is clear that in Germany a court would decide against Osipov, because it is easy to see what Vas meant with "use it as you like", for sure not decompiling. There are lots of decissions that show, that this is expected from the people.

Out of that, decomiling is something different than useing, like "useing a car" is not "devide it into pieces and rebuild it".

Best,
Alex

[Dann Corbit]

I wonder if there is some case when person who allowed to use his exe file with no restrictions won in court against somebody who did something similiar to Osipov by reverse engineering.

Hi Uri,

I guess it depends on where the court stands. I don't have an example regarding decompiling, but when I look on other court decissions, it is clear that in Germany a court would decide against Osipov, because it is easy to see what Vas meant with "use it as you like", for sure not decompiling. There are lots of decissions that show, that this is expected from the people.

Out of that, decomiling is something different than useing, like "useing a car" is not "devide it into pieces and rebuild it".

Best,
Alex

I have a friend who works for a large airplane manufacturing company.
According to rumor, this large company bought an airplane from a large competitor, and disassembled it, examining every facet of it.

Maybe it was just curiosity, but I guess that they also might have wanted to learn something for their few hundred million dollars.

Now, personally, I think that it will be wrong to use the Strelka tables in our source code because they are large and not simple (something trivial like a piece square table is different). I do not think it will be wrong to read Larry's articles and make the same tables for yourself. In fact, I think it should be possible to make better tables than he does (he explains carefully how he did it).

However, my opinion is worth just what you paid for it.