Hi, I was wondering about the nature of how some open sourced programs like OpenOffice are able to open and save to file formats used on other platforms such the Microsoft Word .doc file format. If reverse engineering is not allowed in the license agreement for Microsoft products and the only way to know how the .doc format works is through reverse engineering to enable programs like OpenOffice to be able to handle the files, then is it not license infringement? After all the product is closed-source for a reason...even if it is "clean reverse engineering", that becomes irrelevant, no?
I don't ask this to speak ill of OpenOffice. I like it and use it, but I want to know that it is entirely legitimate so that I am not a party to any sort of copyright infringement practices. All I know is that the proprietary formats like .doc are not open to outsiders, and hence for programs like OpenOffice to be able to manipulate such files means that knowledge could only have been gained though reverse engineering, because surely Microsoft didn't willingly share it with us... Thanks. _________________________________________________________________ Connect to the next generation of MSN Messenger http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=wlmailtagline --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
