Re: [boost] Status of ISO/IEC TR 24733 library idea?

Subject: Re: [boost] Status of ISO/IEC TR 24733 library idea?
From: Mateusz Łoskot (mateusz_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-12-06 06:11:08

On 6 December 2011 10:15, Paul A. Bristow <pbristow_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: boost-bounces_at_[hidden] [mailto:boost-bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Mateusz
>> Loskot
>> Sent: Monday, December 05, 2011 11:40 PM
>> To: boost_at_[hidden]
>> Subject: [boost] Status of ISO/IEC TR 24733 library idea?
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> There is ISO/IEC TR 24733 draft on decimal floating-point arithmetic.
>> I found old thread by Stefan Slapeta: Decimal floating point library [1] I wonder, what is status of this idea
>> in Boost?
>>
>> [1] http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/02/101457.php
>
> Sadly the GPL license put a blocker on using any of IBM's code inside Boost, as was noted by several
> people at the time
>
> http://lists.boost.org/Archives/boost/2006/02/101466.php

Trying to understand this situation around decNumber and its derivatives:

There is C library decNumber which has been released by IBM under ICU
License (X/BSD-like?).
The decNumber is included in GCC [1].
Next, the C++ library decNumber++ was based on the decNumber and implemented
ISO/IEC TR 24733 interface [2]. Strangely, it seems [3] the
decNumber++ was released
under terms of more restrictive license, GPL.

I understand ICU License is not the same as Boost Licence, so copying
decNumber.c|h is
not possible, but perhaps it is possible to have a student who
reimplements Boost.Decimal
from scratch and with "inspiration" (grey area?) from decNumber.c|h

[1] http://gcc.gnu.org/svn/gcc/trunk/libdecnumber/
[2] Listed at IBM developerWorks but download is missing http://goo.gl/mOqSI
[3] http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=151629&tstart=0

Best regards,
-- 
Mateusz Loskot, http://mateusz.loskot.net