tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834826019588534175.post5798783439076287179..comments2023-09-20T06:10:29.485-04:00Comments on The Marine Installer's Rant: Signal K is afoot. Bill Bishop - Parmainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11554223870035485145noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834826019588534175.post-70100460902867466852014-06-09T11:23:42.336-04:002014-06-09T11:23:42.336-04:00http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO–Linux_controversi...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO–Linux_controversies is what you were thinking of, probably. Just plain you-stole-my-source-code claims. No reverse engineering in sight. SCO thought it could pluck a wealthy IBM chicken. Ta. Didn't turn out that way, but it was good for lawyers.<br /><br />Reverse engineering through lawful means is OK in almost all jurisdiction(s) including the USA. Reverse engineering is protected in the USA by the fair use exception in copyright law.<br /><br />Some examples of open source projects that do RE include Samba (RE of Microsoft LAN protocols) and Wine (RE of Microsoft Windows API).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834826019588534175.post-40674529904386209362014-06-06T10:57:58.724-04:002014-06-06T10:57:58.724-04:00I remember the years of lawsuits by the various ow...I remember the years of lawsuits by the various owners of UNIX against the open-source Linux community due to infringement issues...I think it only ended upon patent expiration, but I'm fuzzy on that. If something needs to be reverse-engineered, I would expect a potential for lawyers to get richer.Karl in NYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02233082722631532086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834826019588534175.post-3207584665928204972014-06-04T16:58:07.288-04:002014-06-04T16:58:07.288-04:00Karl, it's a complicated question and I'm ...Karl, it's a complicated question and I'm not qualified to provide any substantive legal information on the subject. I do have some observations:<br /><br />CANBoat has been around for years without any notable strife with NMEA that I'm aware of. CANboat is not licence-able for commercial use. There is no profit being derived, money being exchanged or proprietary information being used. Lastly even if you wanted to sue them I'm not sure how you could do it. There are many people involved from all over the world.<br /><br />As I said, Signal K is an insightful and clever system designed to connect your boat to the world. It's been designed and programmed by talented software developers who are also boaters, and you can tell. I can't find anything that has close to it's capabilities anywhere.<br /> Bill Bishop - Parmainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11554223870035485145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834826019588534175.post-47726460524363943532014-06-04T16:09:34.019-04:002014-06-04T16:09:34.019-04:00@Jeffrey
Signal K is fully two-way. Its a peer-to-...@Jeffrey<br />Signal K is fully two-way. Its a peer-to-peer design to enable sharing between any signal k capable devices. Sharing routes, cruising notes, etc is one of the possibilities. Using wifi the possibility of transfer to nearby boats is also viable. - Rob (Signal K)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834826019588534175.post-44481314696954336562014-06-03T22:41:20.113-04:002014-06-03T22:41:20.113-04:00Excellent posting - really explained the issues (t...Excellent posting - really explained the issues (technical and licensing/political). An open system like this would create many new apps for all boaters. It would be great if there were a discussion group about this somewhere. I'd like to make sure some two way communications capabilities considered for support like route upload/download.Jeffrey Siegelhttp://www.activecaptain.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834826019588534175.post-21152759471443315192014-06-03T12:40:53.037-04:002014-06-03T12:40:53.037-04:00Aren't these NMEA canbus PGNs either patented,...Aren't these NMEA canbus PGNs either patented, copyrighted, or proprietary? Won't there be legal repercussions of reverse-engineering them?Karl in NYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02233082722631532086noreply@blogger.com