[boost] Re: Boost License future considerations

From: Alexander Terekhov (terekhov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-08-04 03:57:15

"Aaron W. LaFramboise" wrote:
[...]
> projects) has.  Particularly in light of what is happening with SCO and
> IBM, 

SCO's claims are barred by the doctrine of copyright misuse (dispute
with Novell on copyrights aside for a moment). That is tenth IBM's 
defense, IIRC. FSF's expansive claims are also barred by the 
doctrine of copyright misuse. And the GPL is "preempted" by First 
Sale anyway.

>      I think many companies evaluating open source libraries are
> interested not only in reasonable licensing terms, but an assurance of
> proper code ownership.

http://www.eclipse.org/legal/committerguidelines.html
http://www.eclipse.org/legal/contributionquestionnaire.html

> 
> For the record, the recent FSF copyright assignment document I have a
> physical copy of requires all of FSF's assignees to obey the same
> re-licensing terms as the FSF.  Perhaps earlier versions did not.

AFAIK, FSF's assignees are not required to obey anything apart from 
agreeing "not to assert patents which are necessarily infringed, i.e., 
it is not reasonably possible to avoid infringement, by the use or 
distribution of the Transferred Work against those who use or
distribute the Transferred Work when the Transferred Work is used or
distributed under the GPL or LGPL." Each FSF's assignee "reserves and 
retains for the benefit of itself and its subsidiaries and affiliated 
companies a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, fully paid up right 
and license to use, execute, copy, make derivative works of, display, 
perform, distribute, sell, license and otherwise transfer each 
Transferred Work and derivative works thereof and to authorize others 
to do any of the forgoing under any terms and conditions." 

Is this the part of the agreement you're talking about?

It's totally irrelevant with respect to what I said earlier. 

regards,
alexander.