Re: [Boost-users] [license] Why is the Boost license not an official Open Source license?

From: Gennaro Prota (gennaro_prota_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-07-27 21:21:30

On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:46:10 +0200, Markus Schöpflin
<markus.schoepflin_at_[hidden]> wrote:

>Huh, boost is not free software? AFAICT, the license allows all the four 
>freedoms. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html for a list of 
>those. So why should boost not fall into the category of free software?

Hi Markus,

not sure whether you replied after or before my auto-followup :-) In
any case, yes, it allows all four freedoms and thus qualify, by
definition. However it also allows the freedom to "remove freedom" on
a specific derivative work: it is non-copylefted free software.

This can be seen as "it gives more freedom", as Brian suggests, or "it
doesn't preserve freedom", according to one's one beliefs and/or
logic. As a matter of fact, that allows cases such as X11, which has
non-free versions being the only ones that work on some hardware
(making it non-free for users of that hardware).

--
[ Gennaro Prota, C++ developer for hire ]