[fpc-devel] Code is clean now, but how about documentation?

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Tom Verhoeff said:
> I don't want to wake up sleeping dogs, but while updating various slides
> to base them on FreePascal/Lazarus instead of Delphi, I found that
> some documentation that I had copied from the Delphi Help years ago
> (probably version 6 or so), is literally the same in the FreePascal
> RTL documentation.
 
> In this particular case, it concerns the text for the String function
> Delete:
> 
>   Delete removes Count characters from string S, starting at position
>   Index.  All characters after the deleted characters are shifted Count
>   positions to the left, and the length of the string is adjusted.
> 
> It is word for word exactly the same in the current FPC RTL reference.
> 
> One explanation could be that Borland took this from somewhere else,
> and that that is a public source also used by FreePascal.  Or maybe
> the Delphi documentation has a license that allows this.  Or, ...

Problem with all delphi IP is that it floats free on the web, including
sites as about.com. 

Nevertheless, we of course always will remove infringing code^H^H^H^H euh,
anything. 

A tool to compare docs automatically spring to mind. (one could decompile
.hlp I guess, and maybe a way to map topics from the index to eachother
could be found?)

So in general I would ask all users that notice such potential infringements
to enter this into the bugtracker. If you have particularly large batches,
or a way to systematically generate them, please contact a FPC developer.