Would Reflector be technically illegal to use based on most EULAs?

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Would Reflector be technically illegal to use based on most EULAs?

My company just bought Reflector, but our lawyers are saying that we legally cannot use it except for open source code (i.e. cannot use it for most Microsoft and almost all 3rd party code). They claim that because EULA's typically prevent a user from "reverse engineering" the code, that Reflector breaks the EULA by definition.

Any experience with this in your own company (or any convincing arguments that we're not breaking the EULA)?

Move to the free world, where people have the right to look at their own property.

Jon Hanna 2010-08-22 22:51:58

We can't exactly tear up Millions of lines of code just so that we can use "Free" products. In the world of healthcare (my industry), our options are basically .NET or Java due to gov't regulations. It would be a rather hard sell to convince our management team to make the leap after 8 years simply so we can jump into source code.

Andrew 2010-08-22 23:01:38

@Andrew, I said nothing about free products.

Jon Hanna 2010-08-22 23:11:02

...and for that matter, I said nothing about what you should do. The fact is though that in my own case (what you asked about) I deal with it by living in a country where EULAs banning people from looking at stuff they've legally obtained is illegal (there are restrictions on what I can do with the knowledge so obtained, but that's just normal copyright).

Jon Hanna 2010-08-22 23:16:46

Alright, so we should move our U.S. Health Insurance company to China or one of the other few countries that recognize Reverse Engineering of code to be legal (regardless of what the EULA says)? Even in Ireland we wouldn't legally be able to "Reverse Engineer" code, whether or not your country would decide to prosecute is an entirely different matter.

Andrew 2010-08-22 23:21:02

"..and for that matter, I said nothing about what you should do." - sure you did, you said 'move to the free world'.

Andrew 2010-08-22 23:22:20

In Irish law we are indeed allowed to reverse engineer. If my country "decided to prosecute" I'd take them to court under Article 6 of the European Software Directive. In terms of what you actually could do yourself, do you have subsiduaries in other countries? You could ask them about the behaviour you would like to investigate. Not very convenient, but better than "just don't look". Reverse Engineering is only useful for filling in the gaps in specs anyway (well, and copying I suppose, but that's a whole different matter, and I'm glad that's illegal in both our countries).

Jon Hanna 2010-08-22 23:36:36

Oh, and it's not a matter of "regardless of what the EULA says". The EULA says that we're allowed to reverse engineer too. If it didn't, it would be trying to pretend to be a contract saying people didn't have that legal protection they couldn't sign away (what in the US you call "inalienable rights"), which would render the entire EULA null and void.

Jon Hanna 2010-08-22 23:39:43

@Andrew and @Jon, no need to turn this into a dispute. The answer was legitimate, albeit impractical given circumstances that were not explicitly stated in the question.

kbrimington 2010-08-22 23:42:40

@kbrimington. If the company has a subsiduary they can move such questions to they have a practical variant. (And writing to your congressman or congresswoman has its practical value too, though is hardly a short-term solution).

Jon Hanna 2010-08-22 23:46:02

@Jon: Agreed. And, though I live in the U.S., I also see the value in your recommendation to operate in a country with laws that mitigate issues such as these. Perhaps folks wouldn't be so quick to downvote had the tone been different, because the suggestion is reasonable under favorable circumstances.

kbrimington 2010-08-23 01:29:27

I'm happy to be downvoted for the tone, but stick by it, not least since I fear we may lose our freedoms in this regard before you win them, and the prospect does not induce a mild phrasing from me.

Jon Hanna 2010-08-23 02:02:21

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Would Reflector be technically illegal to use based on most EULAs?

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