[boost] [range] Should ranges really propagate constess to the data ?

Subject: [boost] [range] Should ranges really propagate constess to the data ?
From: Samuel Debionne (debionne_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-07-22 10:31:55

Hello everyone,
Here is an example code that motivates my question :

typedef std::vector<int> vector_t;

boost::sub_range<vector_t> three_first(vector_t& _v) {return 
boost::make_iterator_range(_v.begin(), _v.begin() + 3); }

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
     vector_t v;
     boost::fill(three_first(v), 1);	// Fail : you cannot assign to a 
variable that is const

     return 0;
}

Taken from Boost.GIL documentation, the definition of image views is :

An image view is a generalization of STL's range concept to multiple 
dimensions. Similar to ranges (and iterators), image views are shallow, 
don't own the underlying data and don't propagate their constness over 
the data. For example, a constant image view cannot be resized, but may 
allow modifying the pixels. For pixel-immutable operations, use 
constant-value image view (also called non-mutable image view).

I expected the range concept to follow these lines regarding constness, 
but I'm not very sure anymore...

for instance sub_range have :

iterator        begin()          { return base::begin(); }
*const_iterator*  begin() const  { return base::begin(); }

and boost::begin() is :

inline range_iterator<T>::type begin( T& r ) {...}
inline range_iterator<*const* T>::type begin( const T& r ) {...}

which means that I'm probably wrong. Am I missing something ?

Regards,
Samuel