On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, Josh Triplett wrote: > > Then any Windows program which uses undocumented Windows system calls (of > > which there are plenty) is a derivative work of Windows and can't be > > distributed without Microsoft's permission, at least until someone discovers > > the system calls and implements them in Wine? > Quite arguably yes. However, Microsoft is intelligent enough to know > that going after people who develop applications for your platform is a > bad idea. I suspect they would have grounds to do so if they wanted to.
The FSF said basically the same thing when I asked them, and it doesn't seem right. While it's not in Microsoft's interest to go after application developers in general, it *is* in Microsoft's interest to go after it when the application is Word Perfect, Netscape, or another competitor. It's telling that Microsoft hasn't tried such a thing.
