legal problem for using DLL's

[Peter Hunnisett]

Erik Dekeyser wrote:

> Dear WINE Developers,
>  
> Briefly with Bricscad IntelliCAD we have an almost-clone of AutoCAD 
> and we are very successfull in selling it to large corporations under 
> a Coporate License Agreement. Several of our Corporate clients want to 
> start with implementing LINUX in their organization. For their 
> engineering departments they need an AutoCAD alternative that is 100% 
> compatible with it and that can be learned by an AutoCAD user in less 
> then 3 hours. BricsCad has invested a lot in making our version of 
> IntelliCAD a stable, relaible and performant CAD software, that is so 
> close to AutoCAD. We have it now ready in a beta version on LINUX. The 
> products name will be BricsCad for Linux and will use WINE. BricsCad 
> for Linux vs AutoCAD is comparable to what Open Office is vs MS 
> Office. We will support three versions: Red Hat, Suse and Java 
> Desktop. Press release is ready.
>  
> OUR PROBLEM:
> We are wondering if we can distribute the Microsoft DLL's with the 
> application without infringing the copyright of Microsoft. The 
> alternative is rewrite some of them, but that would require a couple 
> of months of development and postponing the release of the software.
> I guess we are not the only ones with this problem?
>  
> Looking forward to your point of view
> Erik De Keyser
> CEO BricsCad
> www.bricscad.com <http://www.bricscad.com>

It all depends on what DLLs you wish to redistribute. Some are explictly 
allowed to be and most others not. Generally doing a google for "name of 
dll" and "redistributable" will provide you an answer.

Regards,
Peter**