Re: Proprietary software impedes the progress of knowledge?

[mike3]

On Oct 20, 6:21 am, John Hasler <j...@dhh.gt.org> wrote:
> mike3 writes:
> > So this guy's a salesman?:
>
> No, just an anonymous doofus calling hiself "DA pimp from MARS".
>
> > Doesn't [reverse engineering] breach the copyright...
>
> No, of course not.  Copyright protects creative expression, not ideas.
>
> > ...or some other law?
>
> No.  
>
> > So it's not legal.
>
> It is in the US.  Go buy a copy of your favorite advancement-filled closed
> source program (second-hand if the sales contract contains an NDA and you
> want to avoid a possible breach of contract suit), reverse-engineer the
> hell out of it, and publish your results.  The world of mathematics will
> yawn.

The reason I'd think it wasn't is because the license agreements for
most
proprietary software explicitly say that "you may not decompile,
disassemble,
reverse engineer, ..." the program. Do those terms actually carry that
type
of legal weight, as if so, then I would be right -- it is _not_ legal
to do it?