Re: [boost] [SoC] License question

From: Hugh Wimberly (hugh.wimberly_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-03-21 10:26:29

Well, almost all of what I know and the research I plan to do is scholarly;
there are other areas though, where scholars like to "leave the details for
the readers excersize". For instance, one of the big ones (for DFA-based
regex) is efficiently dealing with zero-width assumptions. I can figure out
a way to do it; I can with dificutly figure out a good way of doing it; but
seeing a good way of doing it before working out my own way is preferable. I
have no desire to violate licenses, or even to push boundries, but I also
don't want to work harder than I have to, as long as I'm respecting
copyright. The reason I asked in the first place is because I need to know
if I should revise my proposal; without using anything but strictly
scholarly sources, I think the DFA-based regex I write will only be able to
handle a limited subset of cases and the "hybrid" portion won't come into
use often.

On the other hand, while the most helpful code is licensed under the GPL,
there is a fair amount that is licensed under MIT, which seems to be
compatable with BPL, so as long as I can (legally) get inspiration from
those projects, I think I can stil manage what I proposed.

-Hugh

On 3/21/07, John Maddock <john_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> Hugh Wimberly wrote:
> > I think it's fairly (?) clear that using code from other projects
> > licensed under the GPL to gain knowledge about the algorithms so that
> > I can implement them in a different context is okay, and that's what
> > I intended to do all along.
>
> Hmmm, not sure: if you read any theoretical articals relating to the
> subject
> area and use those to produce the code, then you should be OK (patents
> aside), but once you dig into other peoples code you are at least in
> theory
> "contaminated" to some degree.
>
> IANAL, John.
>
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