Is reverse engineering evil?

Posted by Amir Arad on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Amir Arad
Published on 2008-11-09T13:08:59Z Indexed on 2010/05/28 11:21 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 245

Filed under:

subjective

|

legal

|

reverse-engineering

|

ethics

Lately I've been pondering on how a specific beloved old game actually works. I had some mild progress, but then a friend pointed out that if I really loved the game and appreciate it, I wouldn't try to reverse-engineer it.

Note that the game is long considered an abandonware and is offerd for download publicly in lawful game sites, and I have no commercial / other large scale intentions - just to learn and "mess around" with it.

Did I miss something? Is there an ethical taboo regarding reverse-engeneering? Alternatively, is there a legal issue?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about subjective

Scoring/analysis of Subjective testing for skills assessment

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I am lucky in the sense that I have been given the opportunity to be a 'Technical Troubleshooter' for our offshore development team. While I am confident and capable of dealing with most issues, I have come across something that I am not. Based on initial discussions with various team members both… >>> More
Best Practise/Subjective: Implement a finite state automaton in OOP

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hi guys, I am thinking about implementing a programm with finite state automaton in an OOP language like Java or C++. What would you think is the best way to implement this with a manageable amount of available states, regarding to good software design? Is it good to implement for each state an… >>> More
Subjective question...would you use the Action delegate to avoid duplication of code?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Hello, I just asked a question that helps about using generics (or polymorphism) to avoid duplication of code. I am really trying to follow the DRY principle. So I just ran into the following code... Sub OutputDataToExcel() OutputLine("Output DataBlocks", 1) OutputDataBlocks() … >>> More
"Best" language /architecture for browser-based app with ODBC and sockets? (subjective)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Sorry to ask a subjective question, but I would welcome some advice. I am an experienced programmer of embedded s/w, but haven't done much network programming, although I have done a fair bit of hobbyist PHP. Anyway, I have to develop what is probably a fairly general type of app, as shown in this… >>> More
The best terminal emulator for a heavy terminal user?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I spend a lot of time at the command-line during the workday and at home too since I run Ubuntu exclusively. I've been using the default gnome terminal but I've reached a point where I'd really like to get my terminal tricked out so that my common tasks are as easy as possible. Specifically, I find… >>> More

Related posts about legal

SCALE 8x: Free software legal issues

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
<b>LWN.net:</b> "But in reality the FLOSS ecosystem relies on a complex legal framework in order to run smoothly and to stand up to proprietary software competition: the various software licenses, contribution agreements, copyright and other "intellectual property" law." >>> More
Copyright infringement - inside the legal minefield

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
<b>New Zealand Herald:</b> "Several weeks ago the Australian high court ruled in favour of Aussie ISP iiNet in a landmark legal battle where AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) argued that iiNet was as guilty as some of its subscribers of online copyright infringement… >>> More
Signing redistributed files

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
In order to submit a desktop application for the Windows 8 app store, you need to digitally sign any driver or .exe associated with the application. However, the application I was trying to submit contains several files that are redistributions of other companies' software, and some of these are not… >>> More
Is it illegal to rewrite every line of an open source project in a slightly different way, and use it in a closed source project?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
There is some code which is GPL or LGPL that I am considering using for an iPhone project. If I took that code (JavaScript) and rewrote it in a different language for use on the iPhone would that be a legal issue? In theory the process that has happened is that I have gone through each line of the… >>> More
Is it really free to deploy SharpDevelop apps?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I'm trying SharpDevelop to develop c# applications. Regardless of the language and the IDE, is it free to deploy applications that use WinForms? I've been developing with MonoDevelop just because it has a designer for Gtk# (client doesn't want to pay more for licences as to use VS...), but it's too… >>> More