From koffice  Wed Sep 19 21:32:46 2001
From: shaheed <srhaque () iee ! org>
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:32:46 +0000
To: koffice
Subject: Re: Potential copyright or intellectual property issues?
X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=koffice&m=100093516616807

Marc,

> I should be able to justify KWord with Shaheed's very helpful answer.  Can
> anyone provide similar story for KSpread and  Excel?  Are there other
> import filters for proprietary formats that I might get asked about?

Since Percy has not replied already, my understanding is that he developed the 
Excel filter in a very similar way, using Microsoft documentation. I presume 
that he also worked without the benefit of any priviliged information.

Certainly, I have seen the Excel file format docs on my MSDN CDs, and used 
them to make tweaks to the filter. Additionally, I derived the structure of 
the kwmf (WMF), msod (MS Office Drawing) and ppt (Powerpoint) filters using 
the MSDN documentation CDs too.

Thus, AFAIK, all the Microsoft filters I have mentioned were done in a squeaky 
clean fashion.ˆ[I°´@A ˜ÿN