[Gdal-dev] MapTech / BSB Legal Issues

[Frank Warmerdam]

GDAL Users,

I have been contacted by Maptech and I have been requested to remove the
web page where I talk about the BSB file format, and provide source code for
reading it.

   http://gdal.velocet.ca/projects/bsb/

They seem to be claiming that the BSB file format is copyrighted by them,
though it wasn't my understanding that a file format could be copyrighted.
I am not prepared to comply with their request until they can provide some
sort of supporting information indicating they truely have "ownership" of
the file format and that it is illegal for applications to support reading
that file format for the purposes of interoperability.

Maptech has not requested that anyone stop using the code I distribute;
however, any firms interested in minimizing any possible downstream legal
concerns may want to proactively drop use of the BSB driver from their
GDAL builds.

To that end, I have added a "--without-bsb" configure option on Unix.  Just
add this option when configuring GDAL and no BSB related code will be
included in your builds.  On Windows I added a line to the nmake.opt
file related to BSB support.  If the nmake.opt file does not declare
the BSB_SUPPORTED macro then BSB support and source code will be omitted
from the build.  The changes went in this afternoon and should appear
in tonights nightly snapshot.

For those who are not aware, the BSB format is a compressed raster format
used for distributing government nautical charts from a number of countries
including Canada and the USA.

While for me the BSB format is if no great importance, it is important to
me to be able to write my own code to read file formats.  For that reason
I don't want to immediately cave in till I get some more information on
whether their claims have any validity.

I am interested in any pointers folks can provide on precidents related
to copyrighting file formats, or suggestions of an inexpensive
intellectual property attorney.   Even a student lawyer would help!  I
don't want to break the law, but I don't want to be give up if I am not.

Best regards,

-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent