Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 12:56:39 +0100 (BST) From: Stephen Roome <steve@visint.co.uk> To: Joerg Wunsch <joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de> Cc: Brian Litzinger <brian@mpress.com>, Charles Henrich <henrich@crh.cl.msu.edu>, freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Anyone know of any software for playing Video CDs? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.91.970519124744.26675D-100000@bagpuss.visint.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <19970519101441.GD00201@uriah.heep.sax.de>
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On Mon, 19 May 1997, J Wunsch wrote: > As Brian Litzinger wrote: > > > I then met with representatives of Philips and showed them the > > cool things I could do with software. > > > > I asked if I could publish the source, they said no. More exactly > > they said I couldn't publish anything that would "give away" the > > definition of the format. 8-( > > You need an ambituous guy here in Europe. It is allowed for us to > re-engineer some software if this is the only possible way to find > about the interface description, and you can prove that you need it. > > (No, i'm not the guy for this. I have too little interest in > multimedia stuff, and way too few time. It probably requires a > student with too much time. :) Stupid question perhaps, but I have a large green book here at work titled CD-I - Fully Functional Specification. I didn't buy this, the company did. Assuming I read the specs and then wrote a driver would I get sued or would the company that owned the specs that I read get sued ? Assume the company I work for has the VideoCD spec. as well... if I read that while working at this company and then quit the job, would I still be sueable if I then wrote a driver and released the source code. Surely there is some way for someone to actually legally see the specs and then write a driver and release the code without getting sued ? Basically, by reading a spec you haven't automatically signed an NDA, but does a company who has the spec have an obligation to the owner of the spec to make anyone who reads it also legally subject to the NDA (and sign one?) ? (Does that make sense ?) Legal Person ? (Oh, yes, I'm in Europe - England). -- Steve Roome Technical Systems Manager, Vision Interactive Ltd. E: steve@visint.co.uk M: +44 (0) 976 241 342 T: +44 (0) 117 973 0597 F: +44 (0) 117 923 8522
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