[SciPy-Dev] scipy/io/idl.py usage permission by ITT Visual Information

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Tue, Jun 3, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Julian Taylor
<jtaylor.debian at googlemail.com> wrote:
> hi,
> scipy/io/idl.py contains code to read Save/Restore files written by IDL.
> These files contain following header (e.g. scipy/io/tests/
> data/*.sav):
>
>  NOTICE:
>
>   IDL Save/Restore files embody unpublished proprietary information
>   about the IDL program. Reverse engineering of this file is therefore
>   forbidden under the terms of the IDL End User License Agreement
>   (IDL EULA). All IDL users are required to read and agree to the
>   terms of the IDL EULA at the time that they install IDL.
>   Software that reads or writes files in the IDL Save/Restore format
>   must have a license from ITT Visual Information Solutions
>   explicitly granting the right to do so. In this case, the license
>   will be included with the software for your inspection. Please
>   report software that does not have such a license to
>   ITT Visual Information Solutions (info at ittvis.com).
>
> So without a license from ITT using this code is illegal (within
> jurisdiction where this notice is valid).

Do any such jurisdictions exist? Even if the EULA's
reverse-engineering restrictions would hold up in court, they
certainly wouldn't apply to anyone who hadn't accepted that license
(e.g., me). And the details of this format have been publicly
available for ~15 years:
   http://www.physics.wisc.edu/~craigm/idl/savefmt/
If I used that document to implement an IDL file reader, then I'm not
aware of any legal doctrine which could restrict usage or distribution
of my hypothetical code in any way, even in theory...

> This is a little vague but I couldn't find any more information in the
> source and the addition predates github move.

The history appears to be here:
https://astrofrog.github.io/idlsave/
https://github.com/astrofrog/idlsave

-n

-- 
Nathaniel J. Smith
Postdoctoral researcher - Informatics - University of Edinburgh
http://vorpus.org