The reverse engineering thing isn't illegal. All you have to be able to prove is that you weren't exposed to the Pete Dowson source code!
Okay, a quick history lesson for the youth from an old foggie (who can still fly the paint off anything I might add!);
When IBM made the first PCs all the info about the system was readily available, except the ROM BIOS (basic input/output system) which was patented to IBM to stop cloning of their PCs unless you brought their chips (which were overpriced, in the traditional IBM fashion). To make the trap of duplication even stickier the clever eggs at IBM published the specs of the BIOS chip, so if anyone copied it they could be prosecuted!
Now the code in the ROM-BIOS was proprietry to IBM, so all a company had to do was get some programmers to make educated guesses about how it worked based on the input and output results, and then get some 'virgins' (people who had not been exposed to the IBM code) to write the necessary. The company that did this was Compaq Computers. They made the first clones and didn't break the law because they could prove their programmers hadn't been exposed to the IBM code, and hadn't duplicated it. Therefore the law had not been broken. IBM hadn't thought this through v.well
So the whole point of FSUIPC is that if you could write a 'similar' program without Petes source code, then you'd be sound. At least that is the theory. Whether anyone is clever enough to is another matter. I know I'm not!!!
I personally admire Pete a great deal, he has given a great deal to this community with little or no return, but I think making FSUIPC payware is a big shot in his own foot as most people can't/won't fork out for it. If he made all his other stuff payware instead I could see some logic in it.
However it is obviously his bread and butter program, and he needs to put food on the table just like the rest of us, and he might be suffering personal circumstances that have precipitated this move. I think I'll just watch and wait before I make a judgement one way or the other.
Ozzy