micja@IDA.LiU.SE (Michael Jansson) (12/06/90)
This is a question for you who have a clear view of what is right and what is wrong in the software business. I have the following problem: I have a program that uses a sub-set of the functions that can be found in the iffparse.library which comes with Workbench 2.0. I clearly want people that don't have 2.0 yet to be able to use my program also. (There are people that still uses Kickstart 1.2, and which never will upgrade to 2.0 because of the cost etc). My solution has been to re-write the functions in the iffparse.library and use them instead of the real thing. Is that legal? The implementation is in no way reverse engineering or disassembling of the library. I just re-implemented the functions I needed according to the autodocs. I didn't want to have the extra code in my program in case the user has the library because he don't need it then. I picked out my code the put it in a new library. I guess this is all legal so far, right!? The new library has it's function at same place as the functions in the original library so that a program that uses my version just as easily can start using the real stuff without re-compiling or doing anything to that program. THE PROBLEM: Am I violating a copyright by implementing software according to a specification that is not mine? Is it okay to use the interface stuff (such as pragmas and prototypes) that I have purchased (2.0 includes etc) to create an identical interface? CONSIDERATIONS: What about Arp? It suffers from more or less the same problems, so is it okay to do what I have done? Does anyone have an opinion? CBM? -- ########################################################## # Michael Jansson | \_/ # Internet: mij@IDA.LIU.SE | V _|_ # UUCP: uunet!liuida!mij | | Absolut Software| # BITNET: mij@SELIUIDA | ~~~