# abaqus .odb files

**URL:** <https://discourse.paraview.org/t/abaqus-odb-files/824>\
**Category:** ParaView Support\
**Created:** [November 2, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/abaqus-odb-files/824 "2018-11-02T17:08:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 12

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dcthomp](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/dcthomp/32/20_2.png) [@dcthomp](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/dcthomp)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2019, 5:51am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/abaqus-odb-files/824/12 "2019-03-12T05:51:42Z")

</div>

> [@banesullivan](#):
>
> I was definitely unaware that creating your own code to read a propriatary format required a license…

Certainly, Abaqus could license documentation of their file format to prohibit details from being disclosed to people who have not agreed to the license (which would prohibit open source readers).

A license would not be required if someone was to reverse engineer the file format. However, in order to do the reverse engineering one would need sample odb files. It is possible the Abaqus license prohibits sharing odb files with non-license-holders in an attempt to prohibit reverse engineering. I would be surprised if this were the case (it might not even be legal to enforce this license everywhere), but it is important not to induce people to violate agreements they have made.

---

_[View the full topic](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/abaqus-odb-files/824)._