Juha Manninen wrote:
On perjantai, 8. tammikuuta 2010 13:12:06 Vladimir Zhirov wrote:
Ok, then one more question. Can we use parts of existing Delphi
documentation (I mean words and phrases, not entire help articles),
or it is illegal and we must create a "cleanroom" docs? In the latter
case avoiding Delphi documentation at all could be quite difficult for
those whose English is poor. I.o.w. should we leave ambiguous terms
to the review of native English speakers rather than spy such terms in
Delphi docs?
At least the same words can be used because they are part of a language and
not owned by Delphi authors.
Phrases, I don't know. If a component behaves identically with Delphi
component then you sometimes end up with identical phrases even without
knowing it. But copy-pasting blocks of documentation is illegal sure.
Reverse engineering is used with other technical things so that one person or
group figures out how a gadget works and makes a description of it. Then
another person or group builds the same thing based on the description.
What would it mean for Delphi documentation? Feed it to Google translator
(without reading it) for your own language and then translate to English.
Doesn't sound good...
Maybe someone knows the legal rules better then me.
Juha Manninen
I have done quite a lot of the LCL documentation, and have the great
advantage of never having used Delphi!
I was therefore forced to use my own words for the descriptions (or
sometimes copy/pasted comments from the program source).
Where possible people should try to say things in their own words; don't
worry about poor knowledge of english, as other eyes can look and
correct it. If you feel you MUST copy something from Delphi docs, make
it clear with a comment, and someone else may try to un-Delphi it!!
Chris
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