> > On what possible grounds would they lose a court case, unless it's
> > patented (in which case it isn't secret)?
>
> If the info is available only by NDA, then you would be violating a contract.
> If you got the info from a crystal ball, then you are okay. If you got
> the info from playing with a product, then you may be violating the terms
> of use contract.
WRONG!!!!!, if you got the secrets from playing with a product (the chip,
board, etc.) with out ever having seen or access to NDA, material
documents, disassembled code. Then it is perfectly leagle to use such
info, it is called reverse engineering, which if the previous mentioned
statements (.i.e no dissable or NDA material) is true then it is
perfectly leagal. How else would AMI, or any other BIOS manufactor
besides IBM, Intel would have been created......
james
-- mack@wile.thetech.org (james diekens) The Tech BBS +1 408 279 7199 San Jose, CA