François Revol wrote:
Indeed they should define interfaces, which aren't really code itself. I recall reading something about it long ago but can't find it back.
This is what I found:"However, this situation collides with several court decisions, which have made the information presented in header files (those containing only the names and calling information of the various routines that compose a software system, that is, the interface of the system) not completely copyrightable. That means that it is legal to rewrite a copyrighted header file, part of an interface, to create a compatible version. The rationale is that the header contains only information about the access points to the routines, and provides no information on the inner workings of the software. This allows open source developers to recreate a compatible version of any library or component for which a header file is available."
However, there can be a lot of code inlined and/or macro'ed in a headerfile - so I think that this is a case by case decision, more than a generic ruling.
/matzon
