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

From: Jens Maurer (Jens.Maurer_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-11-15 14:38:33

"Paul A. Bristow" wrote:
> 
> I think a single licence is highly desirable.

Yes.

I like the approach of having a "default" license lying around
somewhere in the boost web tree and then just saying

Copyright Jens Maurer 2001.  See http://www.boost.org/more/license.html.

in each source file.  People checking the license situation
can then just "grep" for "copyright" (case-insensitive) and need only
examine those files more closely that don't have the reference
to more/license.html.  

If you want to specify additional terms to more/license.html in your
particular source code, then you must not refer to more/license.html,
but copy the license text into your code and make the adjustments you
deem necessary.

Note that users not looking at more/license.html have no rights
to use your code whatsoever, because only the license gives them
the "free use" permissions.  The "default" for copyright is
"nothing allowed".

> Surely for something as simple as this even the lawyers can agree?

Our copyright statements are strikingly similar, and I'm ready to
drop my "copyright must appear in documentation" requirement from
Boost.Random.

>    'no other person claiming copyright'.
> (As I understand the situation, if someone else claimed copyright,
> they could claim money for infringing it and/or stop others using it).

Not required.  The situation is obvious if there's a "copyright"
notice on it.  Nobody else can claim authorship and thus change
the terms.

Here's a concrete suggestion for more/license.html:

// (C) Copyright David Abrahams 2000. Permission to copy, use,
// modify, sell and distribute this software is granted provided this
// copyright notice appears in all copies. This software is provided
// "as is" without express or implied warranty, and with no claim as
// to its suitability for any purpose.

We would phase this in gradually by encouraging developers to
switch to this license in their source code.  However, authors
must change their code themselves.  There won't be a big, centralized
change-over.

Objections?

Jens Maurer