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

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-11-15 22:05:40

At 02:38 PM 11/15/2001, Jens Maurer wrote:
 >"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.

This really seems like a sensible suggestion to me.  We can work on the 
details of the wording, but the basic approach of having a single "usual" 
license, allowing other licences (assuming they meet our normal criteria), 
and having a gradual transition all seem like good ideas to me.

I'm tied up with non-Boost work for a week or so, but after that maybe I 
can run the whole thing by a lawyer I know to make sure we aren't doing 
something totally stupid in a legal sense.

--Beman