Reverse Engineer an OS?

[Peter1234123]

Is this possible, to reverse engineer an OS, legally of course, such as Ubuntu, or Knoppix?

[Albi]

Yes,
http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html

[YourSurrogateGod]

Yes, but it doesn't make sense (unless it's purely for kicks?) since the source is freely available.

[Albi]

Yes, but it doesn't make sense (unless it's purely for kicks?) since the source is freely available.

Maybe they don't like the GPL?

[Dr. C]

Yes, but it doesn't make sense (unless it's purely for kicks?) since the source is freely available.

Unless you wanted to create a propriety clone of GNU / Linux, but in that case it may be simpler and cheaper to pick up SCO Unix at a bankruptcy fire sale if SCO goes bankrupt.

[IYY]

FreeDOS and ReactOS are the products of reverse engineering. Reverse engineering a GPL or BSD licensed products is just silly, because the code is freely available. Of course, GNU/Linux itself could be seen as a reverse engineering of UNIX (on the kernel level, it doesn't quite work in the same way, but is very similar anyway).

If you wanted to make a new closed-source UNIX, just grab some BSD code, make your changes and close it. It's perfectly legal.

[BarfBag]

I'm still trying to understand the legality of ReactOS. Aren't they breaching some serious copyright by reverse engineering Windows? If so, why haven't they been shut down? You'd think that the Microsoft legal team would be breathing down their necks.

[KoRnholio]

I'm still trying to understand the legality of ReactOS. Aren't they breaching some serious copyright by reverse engineering Windows? If so, why haven't they been shut down? You'd think that the Microsoft legal team would be breathing down their necks.

Clean Room Design (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_room_design) (Wikipedia)

[beefcurry]

Go FreeDos, go Wine!

I can see why someone would wan't to reverse Engineer an OS, but an OS is the parts of many important pieces (such as ubuntu is not just the Linux Kernal). Its going to be hard :P, and mainly pointless.

[userundefine]

Reverse engineering implies working backwards to understand how something was coded. With Linux, you've got the source, so just engineer!

[forrestcupp]

Reactos is legal because they aren't stealing code to make it. There are lots of rules in place to make sure they can prove that they aren't stealing code or using inside knowledge. Anyone who has been a part of programming Windows is not allowed to work on the same part of the kernel/OS that he or she worked on in Windows. I believe they are recreating every dll and every file from scratch so that no copyright will be violated. A year or two ago reactos had some legal issues with a possible lawsuit, where they had to spend a lot of time and work proving that they were clean.

Reactos is legal for the same reasons that emulators are legal. It's legal to have an emulator, but the roms or disk images to run them may not be illegal because they infringe on copyrights.

[Peter1234123]

What about reverse engineering a closed-source OS?

[BarfBag]

What about reverse engineering a closed-source OS?

Windows IS a closed-source OS.

[Peter1234123]

Would I get in trouble if I were to get caught with the source code to a closed source app?

[BarfBag]

Would I get in trouble if I were to get caught with the source code to a closed source app?

The answer to this question has already been answered.

If you had stolen the code, you would definitely get in trouble. If you had wrote the code from scratch, with none taken from the original code, then no.

[Sunnz]

Reactos is legal for the same reasons that emulators are legal. It's legal to have an emulator, but the roms or disk images to run them may not be illegal because they infringe on copyrights.

Then is it legal to create ROM/Disk image from scratch?