I thought reading closed-source code is a very bad idea, as if you wind up writing something similar, then you're possibly guilty of copyright infringement. If you have one team look at the design, catalog the features, and describe how it works in detail, then you can have another team implement it, and you're on legally much better ground (unless patents):
> I thought reading closed-source code is a very bad idea, as if you wind up writing something similar, then you're possibly guilty of copyright infringement.
The idea is to avoid accidentally copying code, though TBH i think this is some sort of legend that comes from decades ago and not really practical (nor, as the article mentions, required by law). Writing something similar alone won't make you guilty of anything, otherwise people who worked as programmers wouldn't be able to work at a different company on the same or similar field again ever.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design