On 4/9/07, mark at mark.mielke.cc <mark at mark.mielke.cc> wrote:
>
> Writing from scratch is an unusal description for a protocol that I do
> not believe to be well documented. :-)
>
> I suggest that Dave is speaking about offering credit to the original
> authors of any works that are used as a reference for re-implementation.
> Even if not legally required, it is a gesture of goodwill that would
> avoid people being upset, such as Trent on a similar issue.
>
> In terms of legality, it is grey. If I could prove in a court of law
> that your code was originally mine, it doesn't matter if you change
> the names of a few variables, or changing the indentation. This came
> up with the recent SCO claims to UNIX, and therefore Linux. In a true
> clean-room implementation, the coders would preferably have never seen
> the code they are re-implementing. If I can prove that my coders have
> never even looked at the software, than any similarities could be more
> easily written off as coincidence, or common programmer methodologies
> or patterns.
>
> For Netrek, I doubt that you could write a Netrek client without using
> another implementation as a reference. It might be re-architected, but
> the content will be the same.

I see. Thanks mark. Maybe we can have "Write netrek client in clean
room" contest to attract wider netrek attention from the global
developers community :)

Zach