Round-up of the recent WindowsAPI discussions from when I wasn't looking

[Don Clugston]

Sascha Katzner wrote:
> Don Clugston wrote:
>> Sascha Katzner wrote:
>>> I really see no other way they could have created their files, if 
>>> reverse engineering is off-limits.
>>
>> No. They read descriptions of the functions, and used that to work
>> out what must be in the headers. They did not look at the headers. 
>> Sometimes, the documentation they used was wrong, and so there are 
>> functions which are in different MinGW headers compared to where they
>>  are in the MS headers.
> 
> But header files are only another kind of documentation. IMO there is no 
> real difference if someone uses one or the other. 

But the headers are what you are creating!

The documentation on
> MSDN is also copyrighted AFAIK.

Yes, but there are other sources. You can deduce the contents of the headers by 
looking at code which uses it. For example, by looking at the examples in books 
about Windows programming, and knowing that they compile, you can work out what 
the contents of the headers must be.
Somehow, you need to make the new headers an "original work".

BTW, Walter has a license to redistribute the Microsoft headers anyway. So legal 
issues are probably not a drama in practice.