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Comment by baranul | Hacker News Reader

Any company that's of the US or from other friendly countries, will not stop courts from going after those hosting certain IP (if it goes down like that) they say should be taken down.

Yes, the counter would be to decentralize, but that doesn't stop going after the AI companies too. At the very least, a type of chilling effect can be created, where people and especially companies (with more to lose) would not want to risk using.

From the looks of it, the court cases are coming. Have no idea how things will turn out, other than this looks far from over.

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Wine tells me otherwise from reimplementations.

Also, https://osgameclones.com

Otter Browser it's pretty much inspired from Opera 12 too.

And, for a much better example, XMMS vs WinAMP 2/3, virtually the exact same interface, with skins support.

GNU/Linux itself clones the Unix interface, API and ABI. And so did the BSD's.

Another example, Lesstif when Motif was propietary. Same API, and you could run lots of stuff written for Motif under LessTif. Now libre Motif superseded it around a decade ago.

What the music and movie industry did and does, in regards to IP, is the counter-example.

This is software, not media. Different laws apply. Unix and GNU mirrored 1:1 (and extended) a commercial, propietary OS (different Unix flavours). With FVWM + LessTif + gcc you basically had a reimplemented Unix workstation at home.

Bash, GCC, *utils, X.org, LessTif, ZIP vs PKZIP...

Also, every libre Smalltalk IDE out there had the virtual UI as the propietary ones.

Also, FreeDOS in the 90's and DOSEmu. Same virtual interface and usage.

Law applies to software too. Contract law (EULA) and copyright are applicable. Many EULAs have statements on reverse engineering. Another aspect of this is unfair competition or competing directly against the product the offending software was copied from.

Violations of the EULA or copyright can result in having to fight it out in court. It's a matter of if it will be taken to court (as little guys may not have the time or lawyers) or can be that both parties have decided on some type of agreement.

Again, you are like 40 years late, or maybe 50:

- Whole Unix clones, kernel and userland

- Unix userland utility clones

- Unix compiler and linker packs. Tons of them.

- Unix UI clones 99% close to the original API

By 2000/2001 you could run most GL accelerated stuff under MESA+DRI just fine as if it were an SGI machine, even replacing propietary Motif with LessTif.

- Windows API clones, both for running and compiling software, with WineLib+WineGCC or MinGW.

- Windows clones, ReactOS from GIT can be fairly complete.

- NextStep/Cocoa clones. Currently tons of software made for OSX 10.6 (in a libre way) can be compiled with both GNUStep+Addons and with XCode.

It's not just about duplicating code or a public API. It's also about the look and the way things are done in a product too.

There are trademarks and patents, in addition to copyright and contract law (any license agreements for usage of the software). Violations of any of these, can be possible reasons to be pulled into court, if that's what is decided.

Fair use is also not a blanket shield or exemption from copyright or various licenses, but rather has specific requirements and limitations, that can be what's fought over. Among these areas that are covered are how transformative something is, to what extent its a copy, and how adversely has it affected the commercial value of the product it was copied from.

These are all complex issues, that often lawyers and courts have to figure out. Have no idea as to what will be decided, but do think we are at the beginning and not the end, on what will be decided about using AI for the reverse engineering of commercial products and their IP.

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