[ClassyJacket]

That's unfortunate and doesn't fit my understanding of the situation - is disassembling a binary not fair game, in the same way that Samsung buying an iPhone and cracking it open is? (Assuming we're worried about copyright and not patents).

[krylon]

IANAL, but as far as I understand the situation it is not. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall#Reverse_engineeri...

But IIUC, clean room reverse engineering requires substantial effort to prove you did not take any shortcuts.