RE: [boost] Draft of new Boost Software License

From: William E. Kempf (wekempf_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-06-26 08:53:16

Paul A. Bristow said:
>
>
> | -----Original Message-----
> | From: boost-bounces_at_[hidden]
> | [mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]]On Behalf Of Rene Rivera
> | Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2003 8:26 PM
> | To: Boost mailing list
> | Subject: Re: [boost] Draft of new Boost Software License
> |
> | Spanish is my first, but English is a very close second.
>
> | The impression I got is that it's somewhat hard to parse as it is. |
> | The second paragraph is long; and without any separators other than
> the commas it's
> | hard to read.
> |
> | Here's an edited version which might be better for non-english readers
> to | understand:
> |
> | ~~~~
> | Permission is hereby granted ...
> <snip>
> | all derivative works of the Software. Unless such copies or derivative
> works | are solely in the form of machine-executable object code
> generated by a | source language processor.
>
> As someone whose first language really is english - unlike the majority
> of ex-colonial Boosters :-))
>
> I really must protest that the last 'sentence' isn't one!
>
> Seriously, overall I think this is excellent.
>
> It isn't meant to be read by human beings, only lawyers - and they are
> used to this stuff.
>
> And:
>
> //  (C) Jane Programmer, 2003
> //   See www.boost.org/license for license terms and conditions
> //   See www.boost.org/libs/janes-lib for documentation
>
> Looks fine to me, though I prefer "Copyright" to (C)

It looks simple, but would it be legally binding?  For instance, say I
release my software with this Boost license today, using the above text
(and assuming the links point to the license, of course).  Now, a year
from now something is found to be problematic with the license and the
lawyers tweak it.  I can see a case being made that existing projects
could from that point on be changed to be covered by this new license, but
previous releases would seem to have to be legally bound to the license as
it existed then.  The above links, however, will not refer to this older
license, but to the newer license.  This seems to make the above scheme a
little legally shakey, no?  I thought you had to physically include the
license with distributions and have the individual file licenses refer to
this distributed license?

That's obviously a question for the lawyers, as us laymen will only be
guessing ;).

But it would be nice to just refer to the license instead of repeating it
in every single file.

-- 
William E. Kempf