An interesting question...I'd love to learn more about it. Here's an interesting article I found.. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html Anyone have more information on this?
Quoting Michael Adams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 02:10:40 -0400 > Ayaz Hussain wrote: > > > > > 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... > > > > Comes down to who you believe owns the data in your document. With > DOC it was reasonably clear the document author did, and Microsoft > would not have challenged this during the antitrust suit days. With > DOCX Microsoft started by saying they owned the data in the EULA. With > OOXML they did an about face because of the openness of ODF. > > More info which talks about how it is not necessarily illegal to > reverse engineer programs, which are usually better protected than data > by law: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering#Binary_software > > -- > Michael > Linux: The OS people choose without $200,000,000 of persuasion. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
