RE: [boost] Draft of new Boost Software License

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-06-25 20:43:57

At 06:31 PM 6/25/2003, Matt Hurd wrote:

 >>The author of a derivative work can put in a more restrictive license
 >>right? In this case, wording that gives the full Boost permission must
 >>still be included according to the draft license.
 >>This would lead to a license text like:
 ><snip>
 >
 >I am a little confused.  Like Jaarko, I read it as viral.
 >
 >If you produced a derivative work, or copy paste a little code, then you
 >are bound to include the boost license which makes your source open as
 >well...

No, including the Boost license doesn't make your source open. There is 
nothing in either the new or old Boost licenses which requires that source 
code be redistributed or otherwise made available.

 >Seems akin to LGPL.
 >
 >Is this the intention or have I misread it?

When you cut-and-paste a bit of copyrighted code into your own code, you've 
created a derived work of the copyrighted code. That's the way copyright 
law works, even if your code is really large and the cut-and-paste 
copyright code is fairly trivial. (Under some circumstances copying a small 
portion can be considered "fair use", but that is starting to drift 
off-topic.)

The Boost licenses have always said something like "... provided this 
copyright notice appears in all copies." The word "copies" is used in the 
copyright sense, and so always included any partial copies which aren't 
"fair-use".

So the only change is that the new license makes it much clearer that it 
applies not only to whole copies but also partial copies, and also makes it 
much clearer that the copyright and license reproduction requirements don't 
apply to machine-executable object code. There is no new or old requirement 
that derived works' source code be open.

--Beman