Re: Question about Cocoa/Gnustep

[Gregory John Casamento]

Hey,

--- "Y. J. Chun" <yjchun@mac.com> wrote:
> 
> On Apr 23, 2004, at 11:25 PM, Gregory John Casamento wrote:
> 
> > There is much precedent in both US and European court decisions which 
> > state
> > that an API (like Cocoa, Win32, DOS, etc, etc) cannot be copyrighted. 
> > --
> 
> What about header files? API is mostly defined in header files and it 
> is inevitable that header files would look similiar from implementation 
> to implementation. Is it possible if, suppose i'm developing my own 
> another OpenStep impl., I legally copy apple's header file and modify 
> them?

Don't do that.   It's certainly illegal to do a *straight* copy.   The headers
in GNUstep have been created by utilizing the documentation in the spec and
other Cocoa documentation as a reference.

> It is certainly illegal if i declare the fact that I copied apple's 
> header files but what is the guideline to determine wether it is a copy 
> of their product or not?

It's certainly illegal if you do a verbatim copy, that is to simply "cp
someheader.h anothername.h" or something like that.   I can't stress enough
that no direct copying should be done.

Header files, in cases where no other documentation is available, can also be
viewed as documentation since they reveal the interface, but none of the
implementation.   But, please, DO NOT COPY ANY HEADERS INTO GNUSTEP.

> I was always curious about this. some wine emulator's header files look 
> same with MSVC's.

I'm not really familiar with Wine's code or MSVC.

Please remember, IANAL, but I have done a great deal of research on these
subjects in the past.

GJC

=====
Gregory John Casamento -- CEO/President Open Logic Corp.


        
                
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢
http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash