SOFTWARE LAWS

[TBK]

No warranty expressed or implied....

Being in a similar business and involved in "clean" and "dirty" reverse
engineering at one time or another, the "Disassembly Prohibited" statement
in much software is a condition of the license, not a law. I don't remember
ever seeing this statement in the manual or docs we get with the car. Nor is
there any copy protection on the ROM's. Technically, there is in the
6801-ish chip in the C3's.

And from conversation with GM people, GM really doesn't care. Why? Because
when someone with $20,000 to spend on a car is browsing the magazines, they
see tons of rom stuff for GM cars and little for Ford or Chrysler, which car
*might* they be more likely to buy? Three guesses.

Now, what GM doesn't like is people taking the code and reselling it as
"modified" code (oh yes, there is a popular rom company that did this) or
changing stuff to make it look modified but only changed stuff when the
coolant temperature is -40C to 16C (oh yes, same company) or blowing up the
engine or tranny and expecting GM to pay for it.

There are GM people that know we know alot about the code. From one former
GM code geek, the message was multipart:

1. Cool, good work.

2. It's too old for us to care. The new PCM stuff makes us a little upset,
but not much. The government isn't thrilled but can't do much about it.

3. Don't screw up the engine by doing..........

4. We don't want to see our internal docs splattered over the internet.

Knowing how something works, or figuring out how something works is not
illegal. And trust me folks, Ford ,Chrysler, Toy, Nissan, Honda, etc, will
learn nothing cosmic from this group. They already know it.

Is this a testimonial for anything goes? No. But unless we copy the code,
claim it is ours, raise GM's warranty rates, or out and out lie, we won't be
hearing from them. Why? Because they are already here on the web listening.
If they were going to do something it would have happened. Has anybody
received a message from GM saying "We are suing you for disclosing the
location of the Syclone spark table, you bastard!!!"

Now if one of us CHALLENGED GM by doing one of the above, they don't need to
win in court, they will just send you to the poor farm fighting them.

Take it for what's it's worth.

Part of what's going on is that certain people have figured the stuff out.
It is tons of work. Some will share, some won't. Some may have obtained
certain docs that GM doesn't want us to have.

Call Phoenix BIOS or AMI and ask for a copy of the BIOS source code. Chances
are you won't get it. Call them and say "I know how it works!" They don't
care and will hang up. Copy the BIOS and sell it claiming it is yours and
the lawyers will contact you. IBM and Phoenix locked horns over this and
Phoenix worked to create a BIOS that did the same thing, but with different
code. They had to be able to show that the people that wrote the Phoenix
BIOS did not see the IBM listing (in the technical manuals). The "dirty"
group reads the code and writes down what it does. The "clean" group takes
that information and writes code that does the same thing. The clean group
can claim they never saw the original code and didn't steal it. Now for the
IBM PC BIOS, that's a stretch since it is published in the technical manual,
but you get the drift. Now unless you worked on the original GM code and
went to work for Ford and used that previous information, there is nothing
they can do. Knowing how it works is irrelevant. Using "intellectual
property" from another company is illegal. Ok, so we figured out a bunch of
stuff on our own. Meaningless unless we used internal GM docs AND was
attempting to profit. Personally use? No big deal.

I my opinion, I would worry more about peeling the info from the various
people that knows how it works rather than worrying about a phone call from
the GM thought police. I'll bet there are people at GM that are quite
impressed with the people that have figured it out from scratch.

Now, I would imagine that there are people in this group that have seen or
have internal GM docs and are running a company that is making money from
it. Those people are at risk. I believe little will happen to them.

TK
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Schaaf <SSchaaf at ERINet.com>
To: diy_efi at efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu <diy_efi at efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 25, 1998 7:39 PM
Subject: Re: SHUT UP


>garfield at pilgrimhouse.com wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 25 Jun 1998 21:44:30 -0400, Scott Schaaf <SSchaaf at ERINet.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >I have JUST ONE question, Gar,,,,  Why are you the ONLY one bitching ??
>> >The REST of us just ignore the diatribes.   You keep egging the fire on,
>> >and it NEVER dies.   Please,  Just let it die.
>>
>> Uh, huh. I see that hand, Scott. Thanks for sharing. I shan't forget
>> you. Geez, it's truly amazing how many volunteer woosies we have that
>> ALL say, every woman of them, that they represent the "REST of US". Heh.
>>
>> Gar
>Ya know,,, I was trying to be kind,  I DO understand where you are
>coming from,   I's just that enough is enough.  Why don't you go ahead
>and call the patent office,  turn us ALL in,,, including yourself,  and
>let's get the hell over this crap!!!
>