How so? People come up with the same idea all the time independently of each other. When doing clean room implementation (the ideal best case), you are not liable if what you create at the end matches 1-1 with the original. You never know anything about the implementation detail of the original. Academia also acknowledged independent discovery and publication of many things. Why would clean room implementation be different?

[–] arendjr@programming.dev 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because coming up with the same implementation independently is legal, while copying someone else’s implementation isn’t. Which method you used to arrive at your implementation can be difficult to prove either way, which is why it’s important for implementors to be able to say they never looked at the original. It’s a legal defence, in case you ever need to stand in front of a judge or jury who will question how you arrived at yours.

[–] bitfucker@programming.dev 0 points 1 year ago

That's... what I'm saying. Clean room implementation is legal. You accidentally arrive at the same conclusion independently. And yes, it is tedious to do it but it is legal.