Just a note - I offered to sponsor (at least EU based in PL) legal advice concerning this and got reply from law advisor that doing CR3 reader in Exiv2 is totally OK thing to do judging from materials he read, however full legal clearance (that covers EU) would cost probably ~1k EUR or a bit more (at least from my legal advisor).
I see 2 ways which would cost absolutely nothing in legal fees for open source devs but are still very skittish about āhurr durr legalā:
- Canon releases NON-NDA specification for CR3 reading and just reading. Itās totally fine for us and gives full clearance to create CR3 readers. This is the OPTIMAL solution.
- Canon releases statement granting all open source software to either create or use already created open source reader for CR3 files and takes no responsibility for any open source reader and never guarantees any operability/feasibility etc of open source CR3 reader. Thatās equivalent of Canon legally saying āDo your own CR3 reader, we donāt careā. Thatās sub optimal because it requires loads of guesswork (that is mainly already done).
Any such statement would officially shut naysayers the hell up and be fine AF for my taste.
If no such document/statement comes from Canon I suggest devs (if possible) to use Robinās book (or other peopleās work as a base) and do PR to Exiv2 after getting a legal advice from legal advisor (check your location, some legal advisors offer discounts for open source devs!) and add legal notice to your PR that you sought legal advice and quote the legal advisorās response If Iād have time to do so thatās what Iād do