how illegal would...

[up-smash]

How illegal would it be to help write a tool, or a program, or another nixe to be able to run .exe files on its own? I know wine exists but honestly it lacks power...

 

[kmote]

I am not a solicitor and this is not legal advice but I don't think it would be illegal at all. Operating Systems like reactOS already exist. Wine is actually very powerful indeed.

 

[Hefemeister]

I believe my British to American English is proper here.

Solicitor = Lawyer

Am I correct?

 

[patonb]

Yes..

 

[kmote]

Yes..

Oh man, you should have infinite loop'd him. Like this;

I believe my British to American English is proper here.

Solicitor = Lawyer

Am I correct?

You are correct if...

...my American to British English is proper here.

Lawyer = Solicitor

Am I correct?

 

[patonb]

muhahahahaha That'd been priceless..

We call them Solicitors offically too here in Canada too.

 

[KSoD]

The only way it would exist is if you reverse engineer some of the technologies used by Windows. Like DirectX to get those things that use those items to work properly. Just getting .exe files to work is not illegal itself as it is just a extension. But the program may use technologies that would be illegal to reverse engineer.

 

[oldskool]

Oh man, you should have infinite loop'd him. Like this;



You are correct if...

...my American to British English is proper here.

Lawyer = Solicitor

Am I correct?

Good programmer's joke, kmote ! Lol !

 

[kmote]

The only way it would exist is if you reverse engineer some of the technologies used by Windows. Like DirectX to get those things that use those items to work properly. Just getting .exe files to work is not illegal itself as it is just a extension. But the program may use technologies that would be illegal to reverse engineer.

I'm no expert but I don't think that can be right.
Directx is probably provided as a set of dynamic libraries so yes, while your exe-runner would have to understand how to use dynamic libraries generally, you would not have to reverse engineer specific dlls or anything like that.

 

[KSoD]

While that maybe true which is why Wine does work in some games, it is fully true when it comes to DX10 and now DX11. This is the main reason why the DX10 project to export it to XP was stopped. Cause it had to reverse engineer some aspects of DX10 which are considered closed source and Microsoft has the copyright for it.

So yes while it may work for games that are DX9 and lower, the truth is still that if it requires any part to be reverse engineered for any Windows program it would violate the Terms of Use. Even Windows has it stated right in the EULA during the install that you will not reverse engineer any aspect of the OS.

So no if you just need to use libraries then it wouldnt. But if you have to reverse engineer anything that deals with the Windows OS itself you would be treading into illegal territory.