ASF spec licensing issues

[Shane Wright]

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Hi

I've been working on a KFile Plugin for ASF media files and I've just read the
license that comes with the ASF spec.  There are a couple of somewhat
worrying clauses, copied below...

2 (c) ...Further, you shall use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that
the use or distribution of your Solution, including the Implementation as
incorporated into your Solution, shall not in any way disclose or reveal the
information contained in the Specification.

2 (g) ...your license rights to the Specification are conditioned upon your
(a) not distributing the Implementation in conjunction with Identified
Software (as defined below); (b) not using Identified Software (e.g. tools)
to develop the Implementation; and (c) not distributing the Implementation
under license terms which would make the Implementation Identified
Software....    ...Identified Software includes, without limitation, any
software that requires as a condition of use, modification and/or
distribution of such software that other software distributed with such
software (x) be disclosed or distributed in source code form; (y) be licensed
for the purpose of making derivative works; or (z) be redistributable at no
charge

Part 2 (d) is also annoying; it says that my 'Solution' (the KFile plugin),
must implement the Spec in it's entirety; hardly appropriate for its
purposes.

So, the way I read that, I can't develop the plugin because:

(a) I don't want the implement all of the spec,
(b) I'm using GPL'd tools to implement it,
(c) It will be GPL'd when done,


The point is, am I reading this wrong?  Is it legal to develop the plugin?
Alternatively, would it have been legal if I hadn't read the spec and just
based it purely on xine's ASF/WMV code?

If its not possible to implement it, I'll stop (nothing's in CVS yet), and
I'll remove the entry from the 3.1 feature plan.

btw, if anyone wants to read the full thing, it's downloadable from 
http://www.microsoft.com/asf/

Cheers

- --
Shane
http://www.shanewright.co.uk/
Public key: http://www.shanewright.co.uk/files/public_key.asc
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