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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!van-bc!unixg.ubc.ca!news From: ericg@unixg.ubc.ca (Eric Gisin) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: Fri, 19 Apr 1996 17:38:58 GMT Organization: World Lines: 17 Message-ID: <3176f2d7.2987912@news.ucs.ubc.ca> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <DpsKyx.1Jo@catzen.gun.de> <tporczykDptpAL.8uG@netcom.com> <4l0fv9$1bfs@news.missouri.edu> <4l2u61$fdg@solaria.cc.gatech.edu> <4l4crd$nus@miso.cs.uq.edu.au> <31769650.284D5C90@lambert.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: port14.annex2.net.ubc.ca X-Newsreader: Forte Agent .99d/32.182 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21783 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:694 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3326 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3170 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17685 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46282 Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> wrote: >Warwick Allison wrote: >For what it's worth, "The File Formats Handbook" by Born states >that Word6 format is not documented because it is proprietary >and only available under non-disclosure. > >So you would have a hell of a time legally writing a clone that >could read the file formats in any event. There are absolutely no laws preventing one from reverse engineering the Word document format (as long as you don't look at the EXEs), and writing software that can read and write it. If fact, there are laws (or precendents) giving you the right to do so. Eric Gisin, ericg@unixg.ubc.ca