Re: [Boost-users] Ownership of Boost IP?

From: Nat Goodspeed (ngoodspeed_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-08-03 21:55:27

> -----Original Message-----
> From: boost-users-bounces_at_[hidden] [mailto:boost-users-
> bounces_at_[hidden]] On Behalf Of Gennaro Prota
> Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 9:13 PM
> To: boost-users_at_[hidden]
> Subject: Re: [Boost-users] Ownership of Boost IP?
> 
> On Thu, 3 Aug 2006 19:39:17 -0400, "Nat Goodspeed" wrote:
> 
> >My employer's legal department has just stated that we may not use
Boost
> >for product development because of a hypothetical lawsuit risk.
> 
> Devin Smith, the lawyer who wrote the Boost Software License,
> anticipated these issues; see "Benefit of Common Software License" in:
> 
>  <http://www.boost.org/more/license_info.html>
> 
> where he also mentions a possible way to address the problem.

[Nat] I think you mean this passage?

"But this can be addressed, not by trying to craft the perfect standard
license, but by informing the corporations that they can, if they don't
like the standard license, approach the authors to negotiate a
different, perhaps even paid, license."

Thank you, I hadn't previously found the cited discussion. But...

If that's the best I can put forth, then I worry that our legal dept.
will assert that tracking down individual library authors and
negotiating with each of them will largely negate the savings in
software development time. As the lawyers' position is "Don't use
Boost," I can't see them making that effort, so it would be up to me (or
other interested developers) to pursue it. Which leaves me/us vulnerable
to charges of "wasting time" that could "better" be spent reinventing
Boost technologies.

I suppose the next round would involve my arguing that it would take me
many months to implement even part of the functionality in question --
and the legal staff asking whether my boss should consider someone more
competent instead. :-/

Any additional ammunition would be gratefully received...