23 Nov
2008
23 Nov
'08
10:49 a.m.
Rui Nuno Capela wrote:
Dave Phillips wrote:
No lawyer here, but how can the following be illegal?
1) grab a VST plugin binary from somewhere
2) write code that makes it work
provided that the license agreement of (1) allows reverse engineering.
and that haven't EVER accepted the VST license to achieve (2).
If I strip the engine from a Porsche, then design an 'adapter' to be
able to mount it in my 2CV, that's not illegal is it? If I were to use
the Porsche maintenance manual however, it might be.
The only question I have is whether plugins exist that allow reverse
engineering. But even if the Steinberg license requires developers to
include an anti-reverse-engineering clause in their software, it's not
the users responsibility if this is not present. It's that of the
developer releasing the plugin binary or code.
In summary: if you don't accept the Steinberg license agreement, how can
you be bound by it?
Again, I'm not a lawyer. I just wonder if I can be bound to something I
didn't agree to. I might be naive, but I live under the idea that this
is reserved for governmental legislation.
Greets,
Pieter
Grammostola Rosea wrote:
I do have my doubts about this part.
The Steinberg license _explicitly_ prohibits the reverse-engineering of
the VST-SDK, not only the distribution or selling. Whether it's moot or
not is beyond me, IANAL, but IMHO, I'm afraid the LMMS/DSSI-VST vestige
header won't stand much in case of litigation. I don't get the licence issue of VST on linux
completely, help me out with this.
- Building Ardour, Qtractor, LMMS with VST-support is illegal, right?
No. It is illegal to redistribute the Steinberg SDK (required for
building VST plugins). Its license is incompatible with many free
software licenses and the SDK cannot be added to typical Linux distros.
Btw, the developers of LMMS have reverse-engineered the required header
files from the Steinberg SDK, so it may be legally feasible to use that
code instead of the Steinberg headers.