[boost] Re: Re: an XML API in boost

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-06-03 08:55:55

William E. Kempf wrote:

>> there is no such thing as the 'Gnu licence'. There is the 'GNU General
>> Public License' (aka GPL) and the 'GNU Lesser General Public License'
>> (LGPL). libxml2 uses neither, and its license is fully compatible with
>> boost's license requirements.
> 
> Maybe, but it fails the Boost Library Guidelines:
> 
> "Use the C++ Standard Library or other Boost libraries, but only when the
> benefits outweigh the costs.  Do not use libraries other than the C++
> Standard Library or Boost. See Library reuse (edit:
> http://www.boost.org/more/library_reuse.htm)."
> 
> If a submitted library required libxml2, I'd personally vote no.  If the
> interface was supposed to be portable to other backends, I'd probably
> still vote no unless at least one other backend was included as proof of
> concept.  It would still be nice to have a Boost supplied backend,
> probably via Spirit, but so long as I was confident that I was not tied to
> any specific non-Boost library, it wouldn't matter that much.

I tend to disagree here. Writing XML library is not easy, and libraries like
expat and libxml2 are already here, working and debugged. The effort to
write a new library from scratch would be quite serious, and will result in
anything tangible only after a lot of time. Unless somebody has really lot
of spare time, wrapping existing library is the only way how XML support
can be added in boost.

- Volodya