Re: [boost] Boost licensing information

Subject: Re: [boost] Boost licensing information
From: Peter Dimov (lists_at_[hidden])
Date: 2017-04-13 22:26:14

Niall Douglas wrote:
> > Hypothetically, yes. In practice, no. If it's not BSL, it's not going 
> > into Boost.
>
> That's a pretty arrogant statement.

It's just putting the status quo in words. I'm not making an "ought" 
statement, I'm making an "is" statement. The BSL is a de-facto requirement.

Do you think that all libraries in Boost use the BSL by some sort of a happy 
accident? How would you estimate the chances of that coincidence?

The reason all Boost libraries use a single license is to ease adoption. 
Once the BSL is cleared by legal, ALL of Boost is cleared by legal. If 
libraries could pick a license, every library would need to be cleared 
separately.

This is enforced by the Inspect tool, see

https://github.com/boostorg/inspect/blob/develop/license_check.cpp

For the record, the decision to use the BSL wasn't mine, I didn't write the 
Inspect tool, the decision to add a BSL check in it wasn't mine, and the 
rationale to use a single license for each and every file in the 
distribution isn't mine either.