At 12:49 AM 29/05/98 -0000, you wrote:
>I wrote:
>> In my youth I learned a great many programming tricks by studying other
>> people's code, including object code when source was not available.
>
>William Chops Westfield <billw@CISCO.COM> replied:
>> While this more legal and perhaps more moral than stealing code, it's not
>> really any more ethical.  You have not paid to be taught, even if only by
>> studying the internals that you were not meant to see.
>
>I beg to differ about the ethics.  If I want to build toasters I can borrow
>a friend's book on toasters.  Or I can take apart his toaster and examine how
>it works.  I haven't paid to be taught in either case, nor have I invested
>the engineering effort necessary to build a toaster from scratch.  In the
>first case, the writer of the book didn't make any money teaching me about
>toasters.  In the second, the manufacturer of the toaster wasn't paid to
>teach me about it.  I doubt that you will claim that either approach is
>unethical (assuming I have my friend's permission), yet that seems to be the
>standard you are applying to software.
>
>Historically in the US, it has been considered lawful (and presumably ethical)
>to study other manufacturers devices.  This encourages progress, and is
>precisely the point of the patent system.
>
>Cheers,
>Eric
>
>

Eric analogy is a bit flawed in the Toaster department, the written of the
book would have been paid, in any which case there is nothing wrong. On the
other had pulling apart the friends Toaster (Bad move, I would get angry if
I could not have my Toast and Vegimite in the mornings), will only show you
one possible solution on how to build a Toaster, it can not be guaranteed
that this Toaster is not free from defects, nor is the best possible
solution. We as engineers will quite often look at how someone else has
solved the problem, or what possible design errors have been introduced, its
called Learning or Information Gathering. This then brings up the question
of ethics and Law (This I will not enter into).

But to give you an idea of what does go on in the Learning or Information
Gathering process: The first few new models of any car made are often
brought by other car makers.

One goes to the test track (Handling, performance, endurance reliability and
the sort).

One goes to the sales / marketing / aesthetic group (How does it look, why
would people buy it, what options safety features does it have etc.)

Two go to the engineering department (Now what do those blokes / girls do
with it?)

If the fellas at the test track crash the car, then the sales / marketing /
aesthetic group loose out!

Dennis


PS. Why would there not be a PIC in a Nuclear weapon? These devices where
around before they where owned by Microchip, you never know what might be
inside a squirrel!!






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Dennis Plunkett: Embedded Hardware, Software design
NEC Australia DRMASS
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TRX software
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ph 03 9264-3867

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