Questions about spacet cadet reverse engineering

[matthias....@tutanota.de]

Hi all,

recently I came across a reverse-engineered  Space Cadet clone (the Windows XP game) [1] .

An according WNPP bug was filed some time ago [2] .

I'm unsure whether the program could be redistributed because it's just reverse-engineered or not at all because it was derived from a non-free source. See [3] for some details. The project states that "C pseudo code [from decompliation] ... was converted to C++ ...".

From #debian-devel:

" I'm not quite sure, but I would think that either a reverse engineered codebase does *not* infringe the original's copyright, in which case it can be shipped (in main even, I'd say), or it *does* infringe, in which case it cannot be shipped at all (not even in non-free)."

I'd like to ask some guidance on this. Imho this would make a nice addition to debian (if it is legally possible).

Regards

Matthias Geiger

[1] https://github.com/k4zmu2a/SpaceCadetPinball

[2] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1001894

[3] https://github.com/k4zmu2a/SpaceCadetPinball/issues/1

[Stephan Verbücheln]

They clearly state that they decompiled binaries from Windows XP. This
means it is a /fork/ and *not* a /clone/.

Since I have not heard that Microsoft has put a permissive license on
those binaries, I would expect that the restrictions of the original
binary apply.

Regards

[Roberto A. Foglietta]

It may be worth asking Microsoft to release that software with an
open-source license or at least the binaries with a permissive license
that allows redistributing those files to the reversed-engineered
compiled binary to use them. After all, they did not distribute with
Windows anymore, so their profit over that software is currently zero
and they have nothing to lose about it.

Best regards, R-