PGP source code

[Philip Rowlands]

On Sun, 2 Sep 2001, Charles Lindsey wrote:

>> Umm, if you don't have a license, then you have no rights (downloading,
>> copying to RAM, creating derivative work (compiling)) at all, surely?
>
>If you have downloaded the source without having seen the License first,
>then you are left with whatever the Copyright laws allow. You may not
>make copies to pass to others. You may make whatever copies for backup,
>execution, etc the Copyright law allows. And, in particular, you MAY
>comment on bugs you find in the code, illustrated with such small
>fragments of the code as are allowed ubder the Fair Use doctrine.

But the initial unlicenced download will be a whopping (i.e. too large
to claim Fair Use) breach of copyright, no? I am unfamiliar with the
extent of Fair Use rights, but I would be very surprised to learn that
complete execution and reverse engineering are allowed. For example, if
I just download the files at
www.rv.tibco.com/filetran/download/tibrv_6_8/software/ (expensive
commercial software) without "clicking through" a licence, does Fair Use
allow me to execute this software and reverse engineer to look for
faults?


Cheers,

Phil