Re: [boost] Re: License updates for 1.30.2

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-09-18 07:26:20

David Abrahams wrote:
> Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> writes:
>
>> 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.
>
> I still question the legality of licensing by reference to text which
> may change dynamically.

An interesting legal question for sure. My understanding (IANALYY) is that
Boost (or anyone else, there is no difference) _cannot_ legally change the
license (in a significant way) without permission from the copyright holder.

I base this on:

"Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person or organization
obtaining a copy of the software and accompanying documentation covered by
this license (the "Software") to use, reproduce, display, distribute,
execute, and transmit the Software, and to prepare derivative works of the
Software, and to permit third-parties to whom the Software is furnished to
do so, all subject to the following:

The copyright notices in the Software and this entire statement, including
the above license grant, this restriction and the following disclaimer,
must be included in all copies of the Software, in whole or in part, and
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."

I think that attempting to change the license without explicit permission
falls under "and to permit third-parties to whom the Software is furnished
to do so" (sublicensing) which is "subject to the following", i.e. the
original BSL 1.0 "must be included in all copies of the Software".

If, on the other hand, I'm wrong and Boost can change the license, then I
don't see what prevents others to do the same.