Re: [boost] Re: License updates for 1.30.2

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-09-17 16:03:12

At 01:40 PM 9/17/2003, David Abrahams wrote:
 >Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> writes:
 >
 >> Sorry, I haven't been clear. It is a "stable link" to a specific
 >> license that would be a disaster. It would negate our objective of
 >> having a single Boost license for all Boost libraries, because when
 >> the (even though rare) license changes occur, there would be sure to
 >> be some copyright holders who weren't reachable, and thus the licenses
 >> would diverge. Some would be version 1, some version 2, and so
 >> forth.
 >
 >And how will not having a stable link to a specific license prevent
 >that?
 >
 >> An important advantage of the suggested comment wording is that it
 >> is not version specific. In effect, the copyright holder is saying
 >> "use the version of the Boost license that is current at the time of
 >> release, even if that version changes from release to release."
 >>
 >> The safe thing to do is to not mention a version by name.
 >
 >Oh!  If that's legal, I'm for it.  However, we may have trouble
 >convincing authors to allow their source to be automatically
 >re-licensed under new terms at the whim of whoever's maintaining
 >http://www.boost.org/LICENSE

Changes to the license must be very rare and carefully considered. It is 
really like a language standard - stability is necessary to get developers 
on board.

--Beman