[Lazarus] Incorrect documentation for TCustomTreeView.TopItem

[Juha Manninen]

On perjantai, 8. tammikuuta 2010 13:12:06 Vladimir Zhirov wrote:
> Ok, then one more question. Can we use parts of existing Delphi
> documentation (I mean words and phrases, not entire help articles),
> or it is illegal and we must create a "cleanroom" docs? In the latter
> case avoiding Delphi documentation at all could be quite difficult for
> those whose English is poor. I.o.w. should we leave ambiguous terms
> to the review of native English speakers rather than spy such terms in
> Delphi docs?

At least the same words can be used because they are part of a language and 
not owned by Delphi authors.
Phrases, I don't know. If a component behaves identically with Delphi 
component then you sometimes end up with identical phrases even without 
knowing it. But copy-pasting blocks of documentation is illegal sure.

Reverse engineering is used with other technical things so that one person or 
group figures out how a gadget works and makes a description of it. Then 
another person or group builds the same thing based on the description.
What would it mean for Delphi documentation? Feed it to Google translator 
(without reading it) for your own language and then translate to English.
Doesn't sound good...

Maybe someone knows the legal rules better then me.


Juha Manninen