May I use mdb freely?

[Wiiliam Pan]

Sorry for my English.
I want to develop an application that uses mdb format by APIs(ODBC/OLE
DB/ADO), could I distribute it to users that without Access installed?
Is it legal? Does it pirate Microsoft's copyright?

Thanks very much!

William Pan

 

[Wayne Morgan]

The mdb file itself is not an application that will "run". It requires
another program to be able to open it and use its data. There are lots of
programs that can use data from an mdb file. These include the Office
applications, Visual Basic, Visual C, and others.

If you want to use the mdb file as an Access type of application without the
users having Access, there is a runtime version of Access that you can
distribute. How you get the runtime and what its exact name is varies with
the different versions of Access, so exactly what you need to get will
depend on which version of Access you have. Once you've purchased this
"developer's" version, you can then freely distribute your Access
application along with the runtime version of Access.

 

[Wiiliam Pan]

Thanks, Wayne Morgan. What I mean is, if I develop an application
accessing mdb files by ODBC/OLEDB/ADO installed in Windows, and
distribute it to users that haven't installed Microsoft Access or
Office, is this legal? will this private Microsoft's copyright?

William Pan

 

[david epsom dot com dot au]

You may distribute MDB files, just like DOC or XLS or TXT files.

(david)

 

[Albert D.Kallal]

Thanks, Wayne Morgan. What I mean is, if I develop an application
accessing mdb files by ODBC/OLEDB/ADO installed in Windows, and distribute
it to users that haven't installed Microsoft Access or Office, is this
legal? will this private Microsoft's copyright?

not at problem at all. In fact, every copy of windows xp includes JET, and
you can even write windows scripts to open and read a mdb file..and out to
text if you want...


So, jet is quite everywhere...and your use of the mdb file is encouraged...

 

[david epsom dot com dot au]

So, jet is quite everywhere...and your use of the mdb file is

encouraged...

.... Except by the company which blocks mdb files
in email, and throws up message boxes suggesting
that you not use Access ...

o well.