Re: SDK header translations licensing?

Hello Marco,

> That means you are allowed to reverse engineer them, not that you base
> on copyrighted documents. (headers)

That is not true. You are _not_ allowed to reengineer if documentation or an
other interface is available. Otherwise decompiling every software would be
allowed - it is not. There is documentation available on how to interact
with Microsoft Office therefor I wouldn't even bother about decompiling
them.

You also missed the part that there are lawyers who believe that headers can
not be copyrighted at all for several reasons - e.g. a header file is
interface documentation and therefor can not be protected by copyright law.
As always two lawyers - three opinions :-)  Sue someone if you want to know
it for sure...


> > 2) Publishing stuff to access a library etc. implies that it is the
official
> > interface to the library and therefor can be used by anyone so they can
> > access the library. This includes the right to translate that stuff to
other
> > programming languages.
>
> For own use. Not publically distributing.

If a header file is considered information about the interface it can not be
protected. With regard to decompiled stuff, yes and no. The law allows
exceptions. Nonetheless it is open for interpretion how far these exceptions
go.

- Matthias



 
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