Re: [Boost-users] derivative work

From: Koen Deforche (koen.deforche_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-06-14 05:01:06

All,

> Let's consider an analogy. If a writer uses words or phrases defined in
> a dictionary, does he need to acknowledge the copyright of that
> dictionary in his work? Of course not. If that were illegal, he would
> have to make up his own words and append a huge glossary to the end of
> his novel, which no one would then be bothered to read. IANAL, but that
> is exactly the same as is happening here. Microsoft, Boost, etc, provide
> definitions of functions, etc, for use, unmodified, in other code. Now,
> if were to take the code for iostream, change a few things and then
> market it as my own work, it would be a derivative work and a breach of
> copyright.

If we agree with this, then the next question is: what about example
code ? Clearly the intention of the example code is to help the
developer get on its way for using the library. But is it ok to
copy/paste some of that code or does that automatically make the work
derived ?

For example, for a project, we started from the boost asio http server
example, and extended this with various things to suit our needs, and
put the result in a library ("wthttpd").

Can we now:
 1) license "wthttpd" as GPL code ? (I assume not ?)
 2) link this library "wthttpd" together with GPL code, and
redistribute the resulting program as a GPL program, but put this
library "wthttpd" as a whole under the boost license ?
 3) distribute the whole program, including "wthttpd" under a
proprietary license where the user is not given access to the source
code (under the assumption that we are the copy right owner of all the
GPL code involved) ?

If not, how should we license this library "wthttpd" ?

Regards,
koen