The Register reports that ArtCraft has added WordCraft, plus Excel and PowerPoint counterparts, to its growing collection of Rust applications it describes as ‘clean-room reimplementations’ of proprietary software, built heavily with Claude and dual-licensed under MIT or Apache 2.0. WordCraft is at a pre-alpha stage the company estimates at 62 percent feature parity, with DOCX compatibility testing not yet begun and charts, SmartArt and embedded OLE objects dropped, and ArtCraft’s repositories also model Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro. ArtCraft says the apps were built from public specifications and observation using original or openly licensed assets; the Document Foundation behind LibreOffice declined to comment and Microsoft and Adobe gave no substantive response, while lawyer Neil Brown told the paper the legal position would depend on jurisdiction and that an independent reimplementation may be non-infringing, though a deep-pocketed aggrieved party with a lot to lose could make litigation likely.
Rust upstart reveals 'reimplementation' of Microsoft Office – with Claude on coding duty
The Register reports that ArtCraft has added WordCraft, plus Excel and PowerPoint counterparts, to its growing collection of Rust applications it describes as 'clean-room reimplementations' of proprietary software, built heavily with Claude and dual-licensed under MIT or Apache 2.0. WordCraft is at a pre-alpha stage the company estimates at 62 percent feature parity, with DOCX compatibility testing not yet begun and charts, SmartArt and embedded OLE objects dropped, and ArtCraft's repositories also model Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro. ArtCraft says the apps were built from public specifications and observation using original or openly licensed assets; the Document Foundation behind LibreOffice declined to comment and Microsoft and Adobe gave no substantive response, while lawyer Neil Brown told the paper the legal position would depend on jurisdiction and that an independent reimplementation may be non-infringing, though a deep-pocketed aggrieved party with a lot to lose could make litigation likely.
Source: The Register