> As I mentioned in an e-mail a couple of days back, > I'm about to start implemening a version of wintab.dll. > First I want to ask about legal issues: > > 1. trademark issues. > > wintab is a trademark. > Does this impact on the ability to implement wintab.dll
No, I can't see how. Everything we will reasonable do with the name are either unrelated to trademarks or are used in reference to what is protected by the trademark. > 2. API header files. > Please look at the licence for the API files, avaialable at the > following URL: > http://www.pointing.com/Wintab/WTKIT126.ZIP > Does this allow our use of the headers, in Wine? > Does it allow the use of fragments of the headers in Wine? >From the headers: < The text and information contained in this file may be freely used, < copied, or distributed without compensation or licensing restrictions. So the headers are basicly public domain. Specifically it is compatible with the X11 license and the LGPL so no problem. We could include the files as they are without any modification at all as far as copyright is concerned. Presumably we might need some compiler related fixes though. > This is not too much of an issue, as I understand it's OK to re-write > compatible headers "In your own words". True. > 3. I am in the UK, how does this affect the copyright/trademark issues > above? It is not likely to matter very much almost regardless of there you are in the world, copyright and trademark laws are usually not that different. UK is pretty normal AFAIK. > Ok, some background about wintab: > wintab.dll is an "open industry standard" API > developed by a group of tablet manufacturers, and seems to > be currently maintained by the company LCS/Telegraphics. > Web page for wintab: http://www.pointing.com/WINTAB.HTM > LCS/Telegraphics home: http://www.pointing.com/LCS.HTM OK. Seem to contain documentation and other things nessary or useful for implementing. I can see two issues though. 1. It is not an offical Microsoft DLL so should it be part of Wine or not? IMHO yes, it seems to be widely used. However Alexandre decides. 2. How do you expect to implement this presumably very complicted DLL? Does Linux have some special libraries for supporting tablets?
