Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Use of error codes derived from Microsoft Platform SDK in SMB

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From: dheitmueller <dheitmueller@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 23:17:29 -0400 (EDT)
Well the problem lies not in figuring out what the codes mean.  The problem, as far as I can see it, is that if these sources were all derived from the Microsoft documentation, then can they be used in Ethereal?

If I were hacking the decoder for personal use, I wouldn't hesitate to use the Microsoft docs, but I don't believe I can import them (or something immediately derivative) into the mainline without tainting Ethereal.

Ideally, it would be great if I can find a source which was reverse engineered, or made publicly available.

I hate this.  I need a lawyer in order to write a protocol decoder.

Devin Heitmueller
Senior Software Engineer
Netilla Networks Inc

Quoting Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>:

> On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 07:37:04PM -0400, dheitmueller wrote:
> > So here's the question.  Obviously the Platform SDK is copyrighted
> > (although freely downloadable).  What are the rules regarding error
> > codes derived from Microsoft's documentation?
> 
> Well, I've tried to avoid using stuff from Microsoft's headers whenever
> possible (I got the NT error codes from something on the Wildpackets Web
> site, for example).
> 
> However, I did get some fixes to the "ms_country_codes[]" array, and the
> code of 0 for "Default", from the MS headers, but they were also in a
> Cygwin header, which is a bit more of a public source.
> 
> For what it's worth, we have
> 
> 	http://www.cs.uofs.edu/~beidler/Ada/win32/win32-lmerr.html
> 
> which is available from the Web, but copyrighted.
> 
> Presumably the copyright means we can't copy the text word for word; I
> don't know whether using the information from it counts as making a
> "derivative work", which I guess would also be illegal, or not.
> 
> Then again, a Google search for "NERR_noroom" also found:
> 
> 	http://www.tivoli.com/support/public/Prodman/public_manuals/td/user_admin/GC32-0660-02/en_US/HTML/ADMUS264.htm
> 
> with a pile of error codes (complete with descriptions), and
> 
> 	http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/apcguide/htm/neterrors.asp
> 
> the left-hand pane of which also leads to
> 
> 	http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/apcguide/htm/syserrors.asp
> 
> and
> 
> 	http://home.hetnet.nl/~ojb-hamster/EnWIP/EnWeb/html/erro9nw0.htm
> 
> and
> 
> 	http://www.elfden.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/hamster/helpfiles/section/errors/win32network.html
> 
> which is under
> 
> 	http://www.elfden.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/hamster/helpfiles/section/errorcodes.html
> 
> and
> 
> 	http://www.hsd.at/support/faq/winapi01.htm
> 
> and a ton of other sources.
>