Greg, I agree with your point here– that these files are another kind of data sheet, and that it is ok to generate header files and other code from them.
-adam On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 4:52 PM Gregory Nutt <spudan...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I just looked at that header and looks like a "no warranty" disclaimer. > Does not impose any restriction on generation code based on that file. > > I am not an attorney and not qualified to give a legal opinion. But that > has never stopped me before. > > A copyright covers the presentation of a materials, not the content of > materials. If using the same definitions as are provided by one header > file in another header file were a breach of some copyright, the whole > world would be in trouble. 'Wine' duplicates windows definitions for > compatibility. Linux duplicates some BSD definitions for compatibility > for BSD and POSIX definitions compatibility. NuttX duplicates some > Linux definitions for compatibility. > > There was a a lawsuit about this several decades ago when when Unix > claimed that it owned all of the Unix interface definitions. That suit > failed and it was ruled that you cannot copyright an interface. So we > are free to define compatible interfaces without concern for copyright > issues. > > Another related case had to do with bitmap fonts of traditional fonts > like Times Roman. Scalable fonts can be protected because the scaling > is an algorithm; custom bit map fonts can be protected because they are > original artwork. But bitmaps of traditional fonts cannot be protected > because they are neither. > > In my "legal opinion", I would think that that all of these apply. > Register definitions define an interface and that interface is openly > documented in various sources. We know that creating header files from > those openly documented specs is acceptable (we do that all of the > time). So I cannot see that there could be a legal issue with > automatically generating Apache 2.0 header files from those XML files. > > You might ask the position of the person that claims ownership of those > XML files, but I cannot see how the license on the XML files that > contain a public interface definition could limit our freedom to > generate our own header files for that public interface provided that we > do not re-distribute the copyrighted XML files. Justin certainly will > have a different opinion. > > Greg > > > > -- Adam Feuer <a...@starcat.io>
