Is decompiling AEM bundles legal?

[atyaf66]

Hello AEM community,

I wanted to understand the legality of decompiling AEM bundles, specifically, Adobe developed bundles.

It would be helpful for me to look at the implementation for certain interfaces (beyond the documentation) for debugging purposes or to educate myself on best practices. So, how legal is it for me to decompile those bundles? and are there any restrictions and limitations to that legality?

[smacdonald2008]

Adobe does not recommend this action.

[atyaf66]

smacdonald2008 could you please expand on that? is it specifically prohibited in the license agreement or any other legal agreement provided by Adobe?

Thanks for your response.

[smacdonald2008]

If you de-compile and something breaks - it will not be covered by support.

[smacdonald2008]

I will check with Legal to see if this actually breaches a lic agreement.

[pgleghorn]

Decompiling commercial software for any reason is usually prohibited by the terms of the license, whether or not you recompile. The general terms here apply, with product-specific terms in addition (UK specific, may vary for your country):

http://www.adobe.com/uk/legal/terms/enterprise-licensing.html

As I understand it, depending where you are in the world generally speaking it's unlikely to be illegal per-se, but doing so would put you in breach of contract and give Adobe a basis to sue if they wished to.

That said, in reality individuals do decompile commercial software, as part of self-education, troubleshooting, etc.. For a large company where this incurs no measurable loss, it would not be worth actively seeking out and pursuing such individuals. But, if you took that code and published it somewhere, or incorporated it into a product of your own, then they clearly have an incentive to protect themselves.

Thx

Phil

[atyaf66]

pgleghorn thank you for your answer, I can't seem to find the 'answer' button, but your answer makes complete sense to me.