On Tue, 15 Apr 2003, Thomas Shaddack wrote:
Then I have the right to appropriately dislike you, and to reverse-engineer the "product", which is so shoddy that you are ashamed of documenting its internals, and to publish it.
I am currently HEAVILY pissed, as we built our servers on ASUS
[rant snipped]
Vendors, who keep crucial informations away from the customers, should be shot. The ones, who try to sue the reverse engineers, should be boiled in oil before being shot.
I guess I have to agree :-) Back in the early '80's I reverse engineered a Harris PBX. Replacing its 8080 microprocessor with a 68020 allowed me to take over total control of the switch and make the long distance company I worked in far more competitive. It took a lot of effort and equipment, and Harris Corp. never even believed we did it. Good thing, or they would have probably sued us! Reverse engineering in that case makes 1 company far more competitive. But in most cases simply understanding the principles is all you need to build a better product. The problem is then manufacturing, marketing and selling the better product. Most people are lazy, they just steal the idea and duplicate the principles, maybe with cheaper parts. That's where I think the lawyers have a good job. But if someone can figure out a better way to do things, then the person who hired the lawyers to harrass them needs to be boiled in oil. Anything that slows the advance of technology is a bad thing, and there's too many laws now aimed at exactly that. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike