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

From: Gottlob Frege (gottlobfrege_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-08-08 15:20:17

On 8/3/06, Nat Goodspeed <ngoodspeed_at_[hidden]> 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.

Of course there are many other scenarios, but in the above scenario, it was
the employEE's fault, thus the employER's fault, thus they can't go around
suing everyone.

The SCO lawsuits make it tough to dismiss such arguments out of hand.

The SCO scenario (crazy as it is) is not as simple as the previous scenario.
But still, if it was at all true, it would be IBM's fault, not yours, so sue
IBM.

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.
>
> Thank you!
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