Licensing MSDN content

Question

Hi,

I'm developing new documentation generator for .NET applications/libraries (successor of the NDoc), because the output that my tool produces is very close to the content of MSDN library, when documenting a member of type that inherits from type that forms .NET framework there is a need to put some description of this member in class/structure member listing. Take for instance the System.Object class, every class derives from this class, if I want to generate documentation for any class, in addtition to documenting members of this class I also have to put the <summary> tag [1] of methods such as ToString(), GetHashCode(), etc. in type's member listing. I had decided to write a tool that uses MTPS content web service [2] and collects short ID (for example hxz0dezc for System.Data.OleDb.OleDbType Enumeration), caption (OleDbType), DocId (T:System.Data.OleDb.OleDbType) and the <summary> tag ("Specifies the data type of a field, a property, for use in an OleDbParameter .") for all namespaces/types/members for .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, .NET 3.5, Silverlight 3 frameworks. After days of swearing, praying and debbuging I have successfully written a tool that meets my needs and stores the shortID, caption, DocId, and the summary tag for all namespaces/types/members of specified framework into a SQLite database, so that my generator can quickly look up desired type or member and put the <summary> tag from .NET framework type/member in type's member listing.

But the one question arises now, will I violate MSDN library licensing rules if I distribute previously mentioned content along with my application ?

Thanks in advance.



[1] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/5ast78ax.aspx
[2] http://services.msdn.microsoft.com/ContentServices/ContentService.asmx
[3] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.runtime.remoting.channels.itransportheaders.getenumerator%28VS.80%29.aspx

Answer 1

Have you used Sandcastle (http://sandcastle.codeplex.com) which already does what you decribe above.

Anand..

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Group Manager| Developer Division| Microsoft Corp.| http://blogs.msdn.com/sandcastle/ http://blogs.msdn.com/innovation/

Answer 2

Sandcastle is awful, consumes a lot of memory, documenting takes forever because it downloads .NET Framework's documentation at generation-time using only one thread ! I would like to create something more intuitive with better GUI.

Answer 3

Licensing any Microsoft content is a minefield and this is probably not the right place to discuss the minutae of licensing. Sadly, I have no idea who to ask. Googling (and using bing) yeilds not decent clues.

I suspect that if you were to write to Microsoft (at 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, etc) and the letter was on letterhead, someone will forward it to the right place.

Of course, as is so often the case, if you just do it, then you'll find out who to ask for forgiveness.  :-)

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Thomas Lee - [e-mail]