RE: [boost] Corporate legal department reaction to Boost license

From: Fernando Cacciola (fcacciola_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-11-13 12:44:14

----- Original Message -----
From: Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]>
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 2:14 PM
Subject: [boost] Corporate legal department reaction to Boost license

> I've been having a private email exchange with a corporation that is
> planning to use Boost internally.  The developers involved asked their
> corporate legal department to give the OK.  While the current Boost
license
> situation isn't a showstopper, the legal eagles were uncomfortable with
> having to look at many licenses rather than just one license.  Here is a
> comment from a developer, and my response.
>
>  >My impression is that if boost had a central license for all the
>  >libraries, the legal department would be much happier.
>
> I can understand that.
>
>  > This may be something boost should consider.
>
> We've talked about it in the past.  The issues that blocked us included:
>
> *  We felt if we did that then a lawyer should write the license, and with
> no budget and no legal volunteers that was a stumbling block.
>
> *  We have developers contributing from multiple countries, and that
> confused us as to how international law might affect licenses.  Current
> libraries have been contributed by developers from at least the US, UK,
> Germany, Bulgaria, and Finland, and I've probably missed a few.
>
> *  While most Boost developers contribute libraries in their own name,
some
> are contributed by universities and corporations.  Those entities often
> have their own lawyers, who may want to have a say in license wording.
>
> All that being said, we probably should reconsider the issue.  I'll post a
> copy of my comments above on the Boost list to see what people think.
>
> Boosters, is it time to reopen this issue?
>

Just an idea:

Is it legal to include license terms by reference?
That is, could boost filesbe of the form: ?

foo.hpp
~~~~~~~
//
// The license described in the file "default_license.txt" applies to this
code.
//

bar.hpp
~~~~~~~
//
// The license described in the file "xyz_license.txt" applies to this code.
//

This way, the evaluators don't need to look at each and every file, but just
to the 'license files' (which would go in a 'licenses' subdirectory).

Fernando Cacciola
Sierra s.r.l.
fcacciola_at_[hidden]
www.gosierra.com