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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: MS filters
From:       Cyrille Berger <cberger () cberger ! net>
Date:       2008-03-14 8:21:52
Message-ID: 200803140921.52298.cberger () cberger ! net
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On Thursday 13 March 2008, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> Ariya Hidayat wrote:
> > To avoid confusion, the link I referred was to the *binary* format
> > (doc/xls/ppt) documentation. Sure it has the same license limitations
> > as OOXML. However, if we do not allow ourselves to develop binary
> > format filter(s) based on the documentations from Microsoft, then
> > technically we need to remove our existing filters (or separate them
> > into extra libraries). This is because one way or another the code was
> > based on the old file format documentation from MSDN.
>
> ...or on reverse engineering, which as I understand it is OK. Or at
> least, more OK than agreeing to a Microsoft license that would taint the
> sources ;-).
The OSP is not a license. It's a promise from Microsoft that they won't 
enforce any of their pattents that are related to the specification, you 
don't have to agree to anything. It's funny to note, that even if you 
do "reverse engineering" of those specifications, you benefit from 
the "protection" of the OSP.

-- 
Cyrille Berger
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