[vtkusers] Derivative works

[Matt Valerio]

Hello all,

I'm a grad student in electrical engineering and have been working on using
object-oriented programming practices to solve engineering problems.  Lately
I've been developing some concepts for an object-oriented framework to
support some of the research that I'm doing.

To do this, I've been looking at a number of C++ libraries (VTK is one of
them) to get a feel for what some good software design practices would be
for successful large-scale object-oriented codebases.  (No need to re-invent
the wheel, right?)

>From this perspective, am I creating a derivative work from VTK?  If so, how
do I need to properly give credit to VTK?

Also, particular features of the code appear very well-designed (such as the
PrintSelf() function and the vtkIndent class) and I would like to adapt them
to my code.  Can I cut/paste what I need as long as I give credit to the
code's source?  What if I didn't cut/paste the code, but instead used the
underlying ideas?

I'm pretty new to the open-source software scene and wanted to clarify these
issues because I'm just beginning this software project.  I don't want to
write a lot of foundational code that would need to be changed later because
of legal issues.

Thanks to anyone that replies!
Matt