charlie {l Wrote}:the legality of the process described above is hardly rock solid. IANAL so I can't say for sure, but AFAIK it falls sufficiently in to the grey area that suing for copyright infringement is non-trivial (unlike the case of a programmer using a disassembler to directly influence his code).
Proving that somebody have used a disassembler would be impossible, unless he directly includes the disassembled code.
I.e. author of Freeablo somehow got information on the proprietary data formats, like MPQ, which is impossible to guess, due to the complexity of the format. Yet nobody would be able to prove he has used disassembler. If questioned directly, the author of Freeablo can safely say that some unknown guy on IRC gave him the specs.
Besides disassembly, some former Blizzard employee may secretly break NDA and leak specs anonymously. Illegal, but impossible to prove.
charlie {l Wrote}:Again you like to speak with authority when you don't really know what you are talking about, a bad habit of yours.
Hey! I'm not a lawyer, so I have zero authority. Just curious myself, how Wine managed to avoid lawsuit from Microsoft.