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Date:      Sun, 16 May 1999 16:22:53 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Archie Cobbs <archie@whistle.com>
To:        dlombardo@excite.com (Dean Lombardo)
Cc:        current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Nt source licenses...
Message-ID:  <199905162322.QAA75772@bubba.whistle.com>
In-Reply-To: <373E69F2.5BFADB76@excite.com> from Dean Lombardo at "May 16, 99 07:47:14 am"

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Dean Lombardo writes:
> > At 3:51 PM +0700 5/12/99, Ustimenko Semen wrote:
> > > Are we going to get this license? I am interested in NTFS
> > > source code a lot...
> > 
> > I would be very careful about getting an NT source license if
> > your intention is to write NTFS support for some other operating
> > system.  Microsoft is not doing this licensing for the benefit of
> > mankind, they are doing it to attract college-type users to
> > sticking with WinNT over open-source unixes.
> > 
> > The last thing we need is some code from WinNT which causes us
> > to be sued by Microsoft...
> 
> They can't sue - unless, of course, the code is copied verbatim (and
> it's not very likely to be, anyway).  Otherwise, it shouldn't be any
> more illegal than reverse engineering the code, and several federal
> appeals courts have held that it is "fair use" to reverse engineer a
> program in order to examine and copy its ideas and any unprotected
> expression.

You're forgetting about possible patent violations...

-Archie

___________________________________________________________________________
Archie Cobbs   *   Whistle Communications, Inc.  *   http://www.whistle.com


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