Use of Microsoft Windows SDK headers as FOSS reference – OK!

Originally published on the old depletionmode / 2of1 blog (archived copy).

Some fantastic news to report!

Remember this issue?

Well, today I received an email from Mark Lawrence at Microsoft in regard to the issue of using the Windows SDK headers in FOSS.

Here’s an excerpt of the relevant bit:

"Creating a derivative of the d2d1.h header file would be a problem,
but merely looking at it for referential purposes in order to develop 
your own header and software for the Windows platform should be 
within the scope of the SDK license."

So it seems we have the go-ahead for ‘peeking’ in the original headers and using them as a base reference for our own!