ASF spec licensing issues

[Shane Wright]

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Hi Christian,

Agreed, and after this (and a message from Roger Larsson suggesting it), I've 
sent a note to Microsoft Licensing asking them to clarify.

Ok, so it's hardly a critical chunk of code - its only a KFile plugin - but in 
the bigger picture it's important that Linux users are able to play ASF media 
files in the same way as other types

Ah well....   lets hope they aren't too harsh in reply ;)

Cheers

Shane

On Saturday 20 July 2002 9:17 pm, Cristian Tibirna wrote:
> On Saturday, 20 July 2002 13:48, Shane Wright wrote:
> > 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?
>
> My worthless 680 romanian lei (roughly 2 US cents or 10 canadian... :)
>
> No matter how _you_ read it, no matter how honestly well intentioned you
> are, to me it is pretty clear that the license tries to deny possibility of
> developing an open source asf software based on their published spec.
>
> Thus, in my books, no matter what interpretation _you_ give to the license,
> as long as you'll come with an open source implementation (or even touch
> open source while developing - read: not wanting to buy hefty expensive
> development tools from them) they'll do all to frame your work as illegal,
> bending the provisions of the license in their favor. That, unless you have
> a lawyer budget bigger than theirs, of course...
>
> Ugly world...

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