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NAGI Legal Disccusion

A very old article about how legal NAGI really is. I've received some emails about the subject and one day I'll update this article.

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#SDL

I also had a nice chat to the SDL people in #SDL at irc.openprojects.net. I was asking about SDL licenses and the discussion shifted to how I programmed NAGI. They're not as nice as other coders but they managed to answer some questions:

<Note: bits and pieces not relevent to disassembling were removed>

[05:21] <EvilIdler> J5:What license is your own program under?
[05:22] <J5> none atm.. i wanted to make it closed source until it was finished
[05:23] <J5> i know some other people go release early, release often but I subscribe to the "release it when it looks good"
[05:23] <Frapazoid> same here
[05:23] <akawaka> haha
[05:23] <Frapazoid> it's bad to give people a really bad impression before it's done..
[05:23] <akawaka> "release when it looks good"
[05:23] <akawaka> how about "release when it works"?
[05:23] <akawaka> hmm, yes
[05:23] <J5> plus, I wrote a lot of the code by disassembling an old game.. so I don't know the legalities of that and..
[05:24] <Frapazoid> they may not understand the pre-release concept, as I know many people don't, and then never check back
[05:24] <J5> there's a few goto replacing the mess of jmp's
[05:24] <hofi> who wants working stuff ? it has to look good....
[05:24] <Frapazoid> whoa!
[05:24] <Frapazoid> disassembling?
[05:24] <Frapazoid> J5: what about dissambling?
[05:24] <Frapazoid> what game?
[05:25] <J5> I'm disassembling an old game interpreter (agi) and recoding it all in C
[05:25] <J5> like Sarien except it works kinda better atm
[05:25] <Frapazoid> how old is it
[05:25] <Frapazoid> ?
[05:25] <J5> doesn't support as many os's atm
[05:25] <Frapazoid> (Thats like cheating!)
[05:25] <EvilIdler> J5:*How* did you go about using what you disassembled? Did you rewrite from the way assembly looked?
[05:25] <J5> umm.. late 1980's
[05:26] <Frapazoid> to me that just doesn't seem right, still..
[05:26] <J5> evil: yeh.. some of the code yes.. others I had to guess and others I wrote from scratch (like sdl's)
[05:26] <Frapazoid> well, whatever
[05:26] <EvilIdler> J5:Well, the way Norwegian reverse-engineering laws work, you're safe. Check your own country ;)
[05:26] <J5> frap: well.. i couldn't think of any way of getting my version to work the same as the original
[05:27] <EvilIdler> If you disassemble to see "how it works", then code something that works the same way, especially in another language, it's usually in the clear. Local laws apply ;)
[05:27] <Yorick> I doubt norwegian laws are safe about reverse-engineering
[05:28] <EvilIdler> Yorick:They work. Like I said before, Norwegians are nuts!
[05:28] <J5> evil: i guess i'll have to..

<Note: discussion moved to different editors so I decided to wrap things up>

[05:30] <J5> anyway.. thanks for the help
[05:30] <J5> I'll put up the appropriate notices for sdl
[05:30] <Diablo-D3> heh
[05:30] <Diablo-D3> Vi!!!
[05:30] <J5> and work on making my disassembled code more legal
[05:30] <J5> (if it's not already)
[05:31] <EvilIdler> J5:Do that, and let us know if any games work completely ;)
[05:31] <J5> evil: they do already
[05:31] <Frapazoid> J5: the developers may have to file a lawsuit
[05:31] <J5> i don't think sierra cares anymore
[05:31] <EvilIdler> J5:Are there any Spacequest based on agi?
[05:31] <J5> http://members.dingoblue.net.au/~sonneveld/nagi
[05:31] <J5> sq1 and 2
[05:31] <EvilIdler> Sierra *died* when they laid off their adventure-making people.
[05:32] <Diablo-D3> heh
[05:32] <Diablo-D3> sierra is dead anyhow
[05:32] <Frapazoid> it's knot only stupids, it's real
[05:32] <J5> i only have builds for win32 atm though..
[05:33] <Frapazoid> hmm.. i have to go now..
[05:33] <Frapazoid> bye
[05:33] <EvilIdler> J5:Get some SDL-based ones, and you can cross-compile from Linux.
[05:35] <J5> it's sdl based atm.. i've only compiled under mingw atm though
[05:35] <Diablo-D3> heh
[05:35] <Diablo-D3> and any other gcc clone
[05:35] <Diablo-D3> like
[05:35] * aoiushi looks up. no, sierra died when they let roberta williams make adventure games. ;)
[05:35] <Diablo-D3> cygwin
[05:35] <Diablo-D3> or...
[05:35] <Diablo-D3> xming
[05:35] <Diablo-D3> or... gcc ...
[05:36] <Diablo-D3> heheh
[05:36] <J5> diablo: I know.. but the only working version on my website is a windows executable
[05:36] <Diablo-D3> heh
[05:36] <Diablo-D3> suckz0rs to be j00
[05:37] <J5> cheers diablo
[05:38] <J5> anyway.. thanks again
[05:38] <J5> cyas
Session Close: Tue Jul 10 05:38:36 2001

I just wanted to point out that I don't think it was "like cheating". If it was it would be a lot easier to do. Depends on your coding experience I guess.
 

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