[Mesa-dev] Mesa (d3d1x): d3d1x: add new Direct3D 10/11 COM state tracker for Gallium

[Patrick Baggett]

  On 9/21/2010 9:37 PM, James McKenzie wrote:
>  I just read a comment that you made in the Mesa mailing list and am 
> seriously concerned about it:
>
> It only attempts to prevent reverse engineering, disassembly and 
> decompilation, and does not grant
> you distribution rights under copyright law in the case that you 
> distribute Microsoft code to run
> on non-Windows platform or license it under a copyleft license.
>
> Please keep in mind that Microsoft has been 'tightening' their EULA 
> agreements.  Before you go out
> and do something like what you expressed here:
>
> "I just looked at the d3d11TokenizedProgramFormat.h header because the 
> documentation on MSDN says
> that the shader bytecode format is documented in that file"
>
> bear that Microsoft does track what is being done with their code. If 
> you step over the line, they
> will 'nail' you.  They give absolutely NO warning. One user decided to 
> work with WMP 10 to get it
> to work under RedHat.  He was given a court order to 'cease and 
> desist' all work in this manner.
>
> This is why the Wine project and its predecessors Project Odinn and 
> the WineOS/2 project have always
> kept a hands off and no peaking 'under the hood' policy.  No FOSS 
> project wants a visit from any Justice
> Department, any Copyright office and lastly no visit from the Thugs 
> Who Work for Microsoft.
>
> Again, if you feel that what you did is justified, then you are so.  
> Also, keep in mind that your code
> can be blocked in countries that strictly enforce the Microsoft EULAs 
> (the United States is one of them.)
>
> Very respectfully,
>
> James McKenzie
> I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV.  However, I have been 
> around for the US versus IBM and US versus Microsoft cases
> The US Government lost both of them.
>
>
>
>
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I hate hate hate to ask, but doesn't this precedent 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade cover it? It seems like 
it'd be hard to argue that this examining of copyrighted material wasn't 
done for the sake of interoperability and that there were other means of 
figuring out what these tokens might be. This probably isn't the place 
to have such a discussion, but I'd bet $20 that this would be upheld, 
you know, if Microsoft didn't appeal the case until the defendant ran 
out of money. Such is America. :\

Patrick