Re: Boost licensing policy (was: The STL vector<type *> Problem)

From: David Abrahams (abrahams_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-01-09 21:38:38

"Wil Evers" <bouncer_at_dev.null> wrote in message
news:cfdf39.vn9.ln_at_tinus.intra.doosys.com...
> In article <3A5AE8B9.A51EC548_at_[hidden]>, James Kanze wrote:
>
> > I would guess that, in light of acquired experience, that there is a
> > very strong probability that the Boost counted_ptr will be adapted in
> > the next version of the standard.
>
> That certainly seems to be the direction in which things are moving.
> Taking into account that much of the Boost library is high-quality, and
not
> forgetting that most (all?) of the people behind Boost are on the
> committee,

I would say that about half the boost contributors have ever shown up at a
committee meeting (which technically doesn't neccessarily even make them
committee members), and about a third of those people only showed up in
Toronto because we were having a boost meeting which coincided with the
committee meeting.

> I'd say that many other Boost components are strong candidates
> for formal standardization too.

We (boost) thank you for your assessment.

> In this perspective, I think it's shame that Boost appears to discriminate
> against potential contributors who would like protect at least some of
> their investment by releasing their code under the (L)GPL.  Why should
> potential contributors be required to simply give their stuff away to big
> business, without any guarantee of what will happen to it in return?

I can't speak for the rest of the boost membership, but I have used boost
libraries working for (relatively small) business for years. I can't count
the number of times I've found a fantastic library which I had to quickly
give up on because its licensing terms would have required my employer to
work out some kind of deal with the copyright holder. Like me, most
professional programmers still have to develop proprietary code for a
living. One of the great strengths of boost is its high-quality peer review
process, and the large number of people who will use the code for real
development projects. I contribute to boost because I know the code will get
widely used, and will be vetted by some of the best programming minds I've
ever met. I believe that effect would be severely diminished if boost
contained (L)GPL'd libraries.

-Dave