which severely restricts code copying as well.Ĭlean room/disassemble magic code is different. Please keep in mind that the 2000 copywright agreement was agreed to by many countries and the E.U. and other countries have found such licenses unenforceable or invalid.
#Is wine emulator legal software
My opinions are based upon case law here in the United States where companies and software licensees are severely restricted as to what and where they can use software products unless there is an agreement that states differently. Laws and rules do differ from country to country. Please also keep in mind that consulting a legal authority in your jurisdiction is also HIGHLY advised before using or installing a program in the Wine environment. The Windows XP license does NOT restrict use of the software contained within to only Windows operating systems, although it would be a good idea to have a valid Windows license when doing so. The Wine project cannot be held responsible if you are not doing this and are found out of compliance. One item I do have to stress is that you must read the End User License Agreement (EULA) that comes with any program to insure that you are compliant with its restrictions. For instance, the Notepad program included with Wine is a public domain program, that has been improved by the Wine project. We include some programs that provide the same functionality as those included with, but not owned by, Windows. The bottom line here is as I stated before: Wine does not and cannot contain code that is in Windows. This allow code developers and testers to compare results, not line-for-line code. That is why the project requires, for the most part, conformance tests and the more stringent the better. If you cannot, then your code is disallowed.
Black boxed code is allowed if you can prove that the results are what are obtained by running test scenarios through a 'black box' or some Windows code. So, the Wine project, from the start, has not allowed reverse engineered code. The legal reason for this is that is can end a project, suddenly. It is very hard to 'get the same code' exactly if you are not reverse-engineering. Army_ant7 basically if you had a greater understanding of detection of reversing you would have known it has a signature.