Original post: https://kbin.social/m/tech/t/57239/How-do-projects-like-PINE64-and-Asahi-Linux-write-open-source
How do those projects write open-source drivers for proprietary hardware legally? I know that there’s “clean-room” reverse engineering, but is it really a requirement? From what I understand, you can write docs about how the hardware works and then the other team can write a software based on that documentation.
What if the new software is just implementing the necessities for compatibility and other than that is a different product? Is it still illegal for just one team to do that?
Nothing says you must use proprietary software on hardware you paid for. Just means you can’t get any support from them if you do. The reason people wrote free software in the first place was because of shitty software support from proprietary companies.
@FreeBooteR69 But what if you write the free software alternative for drivers from the knowledge you gained through reverse engineering? I.e. you write an open-source driver for printer (just an example) by reverse engineering the original one. You can surely do it with clean-room RE, but how would legality look like with just one team doing the whole work?
From what I’ve seen, generally it’s assumed that the reverse engineering was done cleanly, unless there’s specific evidence to the contrary (i.e., explicitly copied code, references to leaked codebases, etc.).
This answer on StackOverflow is well-cited and goes into a lot of the US legal precedent surrounding these issues.
All that being said, if you’re profiting off of the work, you’ve entered an entirely different risk matrix.
As long as your team have not seen the proprietary code and can demonstrate the reverse engineering process was legal, theoretically you should be fine. Now a corporation trying to mire you in legal hell in hopes of driving you into bankruptcy, is a risk. Reverse engineering not for the faint of heart, certainly there are risks as well as rewards.
