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by perching_aix 242 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design

TLDR:

legal: decomp -> write spec -> get it signed off -> pass it to someone else for implementation -> distribute

illegal: decomp -> clean up -> distribute

Immediately once they pulled the binary up in their decompiler of choice they were legally tainted and could no longer legally publish any related source code.

This is of course then debated, like everything. So all of this is to the extent I'm familiar with the topic.