[Bf-committers] Windows Explorer thumbnails for 2.5

[Tom Edwards]

Thanks for that. The files' copyright notice is:
> // THIS CODE AND INFORMATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF
> // ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
> // THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A
> // PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
> //
> // Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved
But the SDK license says this:
> You may modify, copy, and distribute the source and object code form 
> of code marked as “sample.”
Which I think clears us. With that and Satoshi's Vista testing both 
sorted, I've uploaded a GPLed 1.0 release.

One technical caveat: I stop reading/decompressing the file after 70KB. 
At the moment that encompasses the thumbnail, but things might change in 
the future!

On 23/12/2010 12:40, Campbell Barton wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 8:53 PM, Tom Edwards<contact at steamreview.org>  wrote:
>> Hello everyone, here's a small project I just completed:
>> http://steamreview.org/external/blender/BlendThumb.zip
>>
>> It's a thumbnail handler for Windows 7 and Vista that extracts the
>> .blend thumbnails generated by Blender 2.5 for display in Explorer. It's
>> feature complete (including compressed blend support), but there are two
>> niggles left before it's final:
>>
>> - I haven't actually tested it on Vista. Feedback appreciated!
>>
>> - I'm unclear on licensing. I'd like it to be GPL but there are two
>> problems: firstly I'm using the Windows API, and secondly the code is
>> based on a sample thumb handler provided in the Windows SDK. I've
>> replaced all of the meat, but a lot of the supporting COM guff is the
>> same as in the sample because it's so simple that I can't see any other
>> way of doing what it does. Does anyone have experience of what happens
>> in situations like this?
>>
>> Thanks!
> Re: GPL, Lots of opensource apps use the Windows API, there shouldn't
> be any problems releasing this as GPL unless you copied someone elses
> non-GPL code it should not be a problem.
>
> IANAL: If the sample code doesn't have a license I would consider it
> to be reference/documentation, after all MS cant expect to own part of
> every app that uses their thumbnail example reference as a basis.
>
> So I think its safe to release as GPL2&  eventually commit to blender/trunk.
>