Evan on Engineering Software

AutoCAD 2007 has shipped. Autodesk has a trial version of it that you can download from their website.

While I suppose I care about what's in the product, right now I'm more interested in what's in the EULA.

A while back, after I heard that there was going to be more embedded encryption in the DWG 2007 file format, I sent an email to John Sanders at Autodesk, asking him for the information necessary to enable interoperability with the file format. I didn't actually expect him to provide that information, but I had to ask him, as a matter of making certain that I was following the AutoCAD EULA.

Here's what he had to say:

"I think it is inappropriate for you to make an assessment about interoperability based on speculation. Similarly, your open-ended request for product information or a waiver of assumed license terms to products that have not been released is premature and unclear. Perhaps after the public release of our products you will better understand their operation -- as you claim to have done so successfully in the past."

Translation: Pound sand.

The problem with the surreptitious encryption in DWG is that it makes it impossible to reverse engineer the file format (which is allowed by the AutoCAD EULA) without having to reverse engineer the AutoCAD software itself, which is prohibited by the AutoCAD EULA, in section 3.2.2:

"You may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the Software."

This sort of prohibition wouldn't seem to be enforceable in the context of reverse engineering to achieve interoperability (which is what the Open Design Alliance does), as there are US and EC laws that discuss just this issue. However, there is a section of the AutoCAD EULA that addresses that as well. And that's the section that I'm most interested in.

In the AutoCAD 2006 EULA, section 3.2.10 says:

Exceptions from Prohibitions. The prohibitions contained in this Section 3.2 shall not apply to actions that are expressly authorized under mandatory law (including, but not limited, to actions authorized under the fair use doctrine in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act and laws implementing EC Directive 91/250 on the legal protection of computer programs) provided that You may not exercise any rights arising under such mandatory laws unless and until You have given thirty (30) days prior written notice to Autodesk to allow Autodesk, at its sole discretion, to provide an alternative remedy, e.g., information necessary to achieve interoperability of an independently created program with the Software.

In the AutoCAD 2007 EULA, there's only one change from the previous version, and that's in section 3.2.10:

"Exceptions from Prohibitions. The prohibitions contained in this Section 3.2 shall apply to the extent that applicable law (including laws implementing EC Directive 91/250 on the legal protection of computer programs) allows such prohibition to be enforced. You will bear the burden of proof in demonstrating that applicable law does not allow enforcement of any such prohibition."

Personally, I have no desire whatsoever to reverse engineer AutoCAD.  None.  All I want to do is provide interoperability with DWG. This kind of stuff ain't designed to make it easier.