[ros-kernel] Re: winecalc source available - no legal issues

[James Briggs]

>Message: 3
>Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2004 12:16:53 +0100
>From: "Johannes Olofsson " <johannes_olofsson at spray.se>
>Subject: Re: [ros-kernel] winecalc source available
>
>Hi!
>Wouldn't it be better to not clone the look of MS Calculator in such a
detail. >IMO it is better to make a clone
>have obvious differencies from the original and focus on getting good
>functionality (not least keeping you out
>of unnecessary lawsuits for stealing somebody's design).
>Regards
>Johannes Olofsson 

Hi Johannes (and list).

I'm a US programmer, so am fairly attuned to the legal situation here.
I don't see any problems with this work.

0) it's a rewrite, so there's no serious copyright issues.
   I don't think enough UI design went into calc, a simple program,
    to rise to the level of a Lotus 123/Excel-type legal dispute.
1) it's just a software calculator, so no patent issues
2) I'm not using MS brandnames, so no trademark issues
3) it wasn't reverse engineered beyond visual inspection
4) I am not using their resource files or help content.

The goals of the project were to evaluate the MS programmers
who worked on calc, and to see how much difficulty I would have in
writing it from only public domain API information. They did a good job,
and I haven't needed anything beyond what's in Petzold. (Although they
did use a special math library, since the current library that comes
with MS VC++ 7 does not support some the inv hyp functions. And there
is some odd window focus behavior with the stats box I can't duplicate.)

James.