Re: [boost] Help with legal audit (yes - this is directed to boost!)

From: Sean Parent (sparent_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-11-29 12:26:46

Having had it pointed out to me that this topic had been discussed recently,
I went back and read all the messages on the topic and would like to make
some concrete suggestions:

1. For the purpose of making it easier to locate copyright notices. All
copyright notices in files should be delimited with:

<copyright>
</copyright>

These may appear anywhere on a line so they can be proceeded by comment
characters or other necessary quoting mechanism.

2. For the purpose of distilling copyright notices to a unique list. Between
the copyright delimiters there should not be any text which is not part of
the notice. Items such as the file name, or change history should not appear
within the delimiters.

3. For easy review. License files should be in an easy to read text format -
preferably plain text but html, pdf, or rtf are acceptable.

4. For locating license files - the name of the file should contain the word
"license".

So far, all of the notices in boost have been cleared by Adobe's legal
department so I don't see a huge need for change in content although having
a suggested notice would be good. I think the one proposed by David Abrams
is a reasonable one to use. My focus is on just making it easier to find all
the notices and get them reviewed.

Adobe currently has two open source licenses:

http://opensource.adobe.com/misc/aoslic.shtml
http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/xmp/licenseeng.html

The latter XMP license is the newer of the two (the open source site has
been stalled due to illness of the person who got it going - I'm
investigating ways to try and get it active again).

The biggest issue I see is that of placing requirements on the object code
distribution. I'd be interested to hear any feedback on these (especially
the XMP license) since the license for boost submissions will be based on
this.

Thanks,
Sean

-- 
Sean Parent
Sr. Computer Scientist II
Advanced Technology Group
Adobe Systems Incorporated
sparent_at_[hidden]