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

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-08-04 11:18:10

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.
> The reasoning appears to be that some party might rise up and claim
> that parts of one or more Boost libraries actually belong to it: that
> an individual developer, perhaps unknowingly, submitted code that was
> not his to give away because it rightfully belongs to his employer.
> In this horrid fantasy, the employer would then sue many parties,
> including anyone who has ever incorporated the affected Boost library
> into their own products.
>
> The SCO lawsuits make it tough to dismiss such arguments out of hand.
>
> This is disturbing on a number of levels. I want to marshal whatever
> counterarguments I can quickly assemble. If it states anywhere on the
> Boost web site that the Boost organization certifies its
> implementation IP clean... sorry, I wasn't really expecting that. But
> anything whatever that would bolster the case against this paranoia
> would be extremely helpful.

Hmmm - wouldn't his same concern apply to any software you
don't write yourself?  Suppose you use VC 7.1.  It comes with
dinkumware libraries - does your legal dept require a release
from dinkumware?.  Assuming it does, how does assure itself
that some dinkumware developer didn't use some code/knowledge
from his previious job or was inspired by some snippet he found
on the net.  OK so you get releases and hold harmless clauses
from all the past dinkumware developers.  Now how about the
windows API - after all that's just another library.  Are you going
to use calls from that?  Does your legal department feel confident
that no microsoft employee or manager has incorporated code
from other sources?  If it does, its pretty clear they've not aware
of all the lawsuits microsoft has had in this regard.  And the fact
that none is of the lawsuits have resulted in damages to microsoft
customers or users or developers' who have leveraged on such
code.

Of course anything could happen.  I cut a tree on my property
and my neighbor sued me.  (he lost the case - mostly).  Your
legal department would suggest I never cut another tree on
my property.  And from their narrrow perspective they're right.
But of course they don't see the whole picture.  If your legal
department runs your company, you're going to be out of a job
in the not too distant future in any case, so you might as well
start looking for another job now.

Such a decision has technical and econonmic implications far, far
beyond what your legal department (and probably management - if its gotten
this far) are aware of.

Maybe more practical advice would be
to suggest to your boss that he get a second legal opinion.  This
is what I recommend on decisions with a potentially large
impact  that depend on arcane technical expertise
(e.g., kidney transplant, etc.).  This should be done more
often with all "professional" services - including software
developement.  This is a much wider variety of opinion
and options than one is going to appreciate from just
consulting with one practitioner.

Robert Ramey