Re: [boost] License of endian and limits in Boost detail

Subject: Re: [boost] License of endian and limits in Boost detail
From: Philip Bennefall (philip_at_[hidden])
Date: 2013-03-17 05:30:55

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rene Rivera" <grafikrobot_at_[hidden]>
To: <boost_at_[hidden]>
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 2:45 AM
Subject: Re: [boost] License of endian and limits in Boost detail

On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 4:31 AM, John Maddock <boost.regex_at_[hidden]>wrote:

> Are there any news on what might be done regarding this? I looked a little
>> more into it today, and it appears as though something as trivial as
>> boost/circular_buffer.hpp pulls in the whole config folder with 
>> endian.hpp
>> and limits.hpp so I am avoiding using them altogether for now in this
>> project.
>>
>
> I've just removed detail/limits.hpp and edited boost/limits.hpp to not
> refer to it.
>
> We'll see if anyone complains I guess.
>
> endian.hpp is harder to know what to do with: there's no actual code in
> there, it's more like the accumulated wisdom of multiple Boosters plus bug
> reports etc.  I'm actually not sure why SGI's copyright ended up in there:
> looks like when Caleb Epstein originally wrote that header he borrowed the
> "wisdom" from limits.hpp and so put SGI's copyright on it.  Any ideas on
> how we would go about creating a clean version?  If someone described the
> logic in words, and someone else wrote a new header from the description
> would that do it - or am I deceiving myself?
>

If someone describes the general aspects of the detection I can see about
adding it to my Predef library. With the eventual expectation that the
library is going to make it into Boost soon obviously. But if it doesn't it
would be then OK to steal the code into Boost without the library.. I could
also do some research into doing the detection entirely on my own. But that
would take more time.

Hello,

For my part, I would be most greatful to anyone willing to spend the time to 
correct this problem. For me, it's a bit of a Boost usage showstopper 
because pretty much every library includes endian.hpp. While my knowledge on 
the subject of detecting endianness is quite limited, I would be more than 
happy to do anything I can to help resolve the situation.

Kind regards,

Philip Bennefall