What kind of techniques can I legally use to discover if a pr oduc t really is violating some (L)GPL code ?

[Diamant-Berger, Antoine]

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Peter Roozemaal [mailto:mathfox at xs4all.nl] 
Envoyé : vendredi 24 octobre 2008 14:00
À : 'legal at lists.gpl-violations.org'
Cc : Diamant-Berger, Antoine
Objet : Re: What kind of techniques can I legally use to discover if a
produc t really is violating some (L)GPL code ?

Hallo Antoine,

I can not give you any definite advice on how much reverse engineering
is allowed in France, as I am not familiar enough with French law. A
good copyright lawyer should be able to tell you what is allowed and he
can also give you advice on how to document your findings so that they
carry most weight as evidence in court. In general it is the EULA that
restricts reverse engineering more than copyright law.

Do you own copyrights that you suspect the commercial application is
infringing upon? In that case you can file a copyright infringement
lawsuit yourself; I strongly recommend that you hire a lawyer:
- Getting an independent opinion on merits and risks of the lawsuit
- Having someone handling the administrative drudgery of the lawsuit
- Preventing you from stupid legal errors (like omitting essential
information)
If you're not a copyright owner you lack standing in the lawsuit and you
might end up doing all your work for nothing.

Peter.



Hello Peter,

Thanks for the answer. I think I'll effectively try and find legal counsel.

Although I'm a copyright owner (not significantly so, I only contributed 1-2
patches) for the most recent versions, I'm not for the old incriminated one,
but if I work to find evidence, I'll consider that as an other contribution,
and forward them to the other copyright owners just as I would contribute
patches ...

You say that the EULA is the one that would restrict reverse-engineering,
but at which point does it take effect?
If I don't install the software and only look at it from the "outside", do
you think it still is binding?

I understand that all these questions are "country/law" dependent, but I
thought that there could be somewhere where these questions/answers could be
centralized, and that gpl-violations could be such place ...

Thanks again for the time/answer.

Antoine Diamant-Berger