Fw: SOFTWARE LAWS

["Bruce Plecan" <nacelp@bright.net>]

>From the archives
Look at the date
Grumpy


Sent: Thursday, June 25, 1998 11:29 PM
Subject: SOFTWARE LAWS
> No warranty expressed or implied....
> Being in a similar business and involved in "clean" and "dirty" reverse
> engineering at one time or another, the "Disassembly Prohibited" statement
> in much software is a condition of the license, not a law. I don't
remember
> ever seeing this statement in the manual or docs we get with the car. Nor
is
> there any copy protection on the ROM's. Technically, there is in the
> 6801-ish chip in the C3's.
> And from conversation with GM people, GM really doesn't care. Why? Because
> when someone with $20,000 to spend on a car is browsing the magazines,
they
> see tons of rom stuff for GM cars and little for Ford or Chrysler, which
car
> *might* they be more likely to buy? Three guesses.
> Now, what GM doesn't like is people taking the code and reselling it as
> "modified" code (oh yes, there is a popular rom company that did this) or
> changing stuff to make it look modified but only changed stuff when the
> coolant temperature is -40C to 16C (oh yes, same company) or blowing up
the
> engine or tranny and expecting GM to pay for it.
>
> There are GM people that know we know alot about the code. From one former
> GM code geek, the message was multipart:
>
> 1. Cool, good work.
>
> 2. It's too old for us to care. The new PCM stuff makes us a little upset,
> but not much. The government isn't thrilled but can't do much about it.
>
> 3. Don't screw up the engine by doing..........
>
> 4. We don't want to see our internal docs splattered over the internet.
>
> Knowing how something works, or figuring out how something works is not
> illegal. And trust me folks, Ford ,Chrysler, Toy, Nissan, Honda, etc, will
> learn nothing cosmic from this group. They already know it.
>
> Is this a testimonial for anything goes? No. But unless we copy the code,
> claim it is ours, raise GM's warranty rates, or out and out lie, we won't
be
> hearing from them. Why? Because they are already here on the web
listening.
> If they were going to do something it would have happened. Has anybody
> received a message from GM saying "We are suing you for disclosing the
> location of the Syclone spark table, you bastard!!!"
>
> Now if one of us CHALLENGED GM by doing one of the above, they don't need
to
> win in court, they will just send you to the poor farm fighting them.
>
> Take it for what's it's worth.
>
> Part of what's going on is that certain people have figured the stuff out.
> It is tons of work. Some will share, some won't. Some may have obtained
> certain docs that GM doesn't want us to have.
>
> Call Phoenix BIOS or AMI and ask for a copy of the BIOS source code.
Chances
> are you won't get it. Call them and say "I know how it works!" They don't
> care and will hang up. Copy the BIOS and sell it claiming it is yours and
> the lawyers will contact you. IBM and Phoenix locked horns over this and
> Phoenix worked to create a BIOS that did the same thing, but with
different
> code. They had to be able to show that the people that wrote the Phoenix
> BIOS did not see the IBM listing (in the technical manuals). The "dirty"
> group reads the code and writes down what it does. The "clean" group takes
> that information and writes code that does the same thing. The clean group
> can claim they never saw the original code and didn't steal it. Now for
the
> IBM PC BIOS, that's a stretch since it is published in the technical
manual,
> but you get the drift. Now unless you worked on the original GM code and
> went to work for Ford and used that previous information, there is nothing
> they can do. Knowing how it works is irrelevant. Using "intellectual
> property" from another company is illegal. Ok, so we figured out a bunch
of
> stuff on our own. Meaningless unless we used internal GM docs AND was
> attempting to profit. Personally use? No big deal.
>
> I my opinion, I would worry more about peeling the info from the various
> people that knows how it works rather than worrying about a phone call
from
> the GM thought police. I'll bet there are people at GM that are quite
> impressed with the people that have figured it out from scratch.
>
> Now, I would imagine that there are people in this group that have seen or
> have internal GM docs and are running a company that is making money from
> it. Those people are at risk. I believe little will happen to them.


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