mirror of
https://github.com/boostorg/more.git
synced 2024-12-26 23:30:29 +08:00
218 lines
11 KiB
HTML
218 lines
11 KiB
HTML
<html>
|
||
|
||
<head>
|
||
<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us">
|
||
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
|
||
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
|
||
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
|
||
<title>Boost Software License Background</title>
|
||
</head>
|
||
|
||
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
|
||
|
||
<table border="1" bgcolor="#007F7F" cellpadding="2">
|
||
<tr>
|
||
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><img src="../c++boost.gif" alt="c++boost.gif (8819 bytes)" width="277" height="86"></td>
|
||
<td><a href="../index.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>Home</big></font></a></td>
|
||
<td><a href="../libs/libraries.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>Libraries</big></font></a></td>
|
||
<td><a href="../people/people.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>People</big></font></a></td>
|
||
<td><a href="faq.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>FAQ</big></font></a></td>
|
||
<td><a href="index.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>More</big></font></a></td>
|
||
</tr>
|
||
</table>
|
||
|
||
<h1>Information about the <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">Boost Software License</a> </h1>
|
||
|
||
<p><a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">License text</a><br>
|
||
<a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a><br>
|
||
<a href="#History">History</a><br>
|
||
<a href="#Rationale">Rationale</a><br>
|
||
<a href="#FAQ">FAQ</a><br>
|
||
<a href="#Transition">Transition</a><br>
|
||
<a href="#Acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></p>
|
||
|
||
<h2><a name="Introduction">Introduction</a></h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>The <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">Boost Software License</a> specifies the terms and
|
||
conditions of use for the Boost libraries covered by the license.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Some Boost libraries have their own licenses. The hope is that eventually all
|
||
Boost libraries will be covered by the Boost Software License.</p>
|
||
|
||
<h2><a name="History">History</a></h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>As Boost grew, it became unmanageable for each Boost file to have
|
||
its own license. Users complained that each license needed to be reviewed, and that
|
||
reviews were difficult or impossible if Boost libraries contained many different licenses.
|
||
Boost moderators and maintainers spent excessive time dealing with license
|
||
issues. Boost developers often copied existing licenses without actually knowing
|
||
if the license wording met legal needs.</p>
|
||
<p>To clarify these licensing issues, the Boost moderators asked for help from
|
||
the <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu">Berkman Center for Internet & Society</a>
|
||
at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It was requested that a
|
||
single Boost license be developed that met the traditional requirements that Boost licenses, particularly:</p>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li>Must be simple to read and understand. </li>
|
||
<li>Must grant permission without fee to copy, use and modify the software for
|
||
any use (commercial and non-commercial). </li>
|
||
<li>Must require that the license appear with all copies [including
|
||
redistributions] of the software source code. </li>
|
||
<li>Must not require that the license appear with executables or other binary
|
||
uses of the library. </li>
|
||
<li>Must not require that the source code be available for execution or other
|
||
binary uses of the library. </li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
<p>Additionally, other common open source licenses were studied to see what
|
||
additional issues were being treated, and additions representing good legal
|
||
practice were also requested. The result is the <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">Boost
|
||
Software License</a>.</p>
|
||
|
||
<h2><a name="Rationale">Rationale</a></h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>The following rationale was provided by Devin Smith, the
|
||
lawyer who wrote the Boost Software License. It has been edited slightly for
|
||
brevity. Editorial additions are shown in square brackets.</p>
|
||
|
||
<h3>Benefit of Common Software License</h3>
|
||
<p>If one of Boost's goals is to ease use and adoption of the various
|
||
libraries made available by Boost, it does make sense to try to
|
||
standardize the licenses under which the libraries are made available to
|
||
users. (I make some recommendations about a possible short-form license
|
||
below.)</p>
|
||
<p>[Standardizing the license will not] necessarily address the issue of satisfying
|
||
corporate licensees. Each corporation will have its own concerns, based
|
||
on their own experiences with software licensing and distribution and,
|
||
if they're careful, will want to carefully review each license, even if
|
||
they've been told that they're all standard. I would expect that,
|
||
unless we're remarkably brilliant (or lucky) in drafting the standard
|
||
Boost license, the standard license won't satisfy the legal departments
|
||
of all corporations. I imagine that some will, for instance, absolutely
|
||
insist that licensors provide a warranty of title and provide
|
||
indemnification for third-party intellectual property infringement
|
||
claims. Others may want functional warranties. (If I were advising the
|
||
corporations, I would point out that they're not paying anything for the
|
||
code and getting such warranties from individual programmers, who
|
||
probably do not have deep pockets, is not that valuable anyway, but
|
||
other lawyers may disagree.)</p>
|
||
<p>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.</p>
|
||
<p>One other benefit of adopting a standard license is to help ensure that
|
||
the license accomplishes, from a legal perspective, what the authors
|
||
intend. For instance, many of the [original] licenses for the libraries available
|
||
on boost.org do not disclaim the warranty of title, meaning that the
|
||
authors could, arguably, be sued by a user if the code infringes the
|
||
rights of a third party and the user is sued by that third party. I
|
||
think the authors probably want to disclaim this kind of liability.</p>
|
||
<h3>Short-Form License</h3>
|
||
<p>Without in anyway detracting from the draft license that's been
|
||
circulated [to Boost moderators], I'd like to propose an alternative "short-form" license that
|
||
Boost could have the library authors adopt. David [Abrahams] has expressed a
|
||
desire to keep things as simple as possible, and to try to move away
|
||
from past practice as little as possible, and this is my attempt at a
|
||
draft.</p>
|
||
<p>This license, which is very similar to the BSD license and the MIT
|
||
license, should satisfy the Open Source Initiative's Open Source
|
||
Definition: (i) the license permits free redistribution, (ii) the
|
||
distributed code includes source code, (iii) the license permits the
|
||
creation of derivative works, (iv) the license does not discriminate
|
||
against persons or groups, (v) the license does not discriminate against
|
||
fields of endeavor, (vi) the rights apply to all to whom the program is
|
||
redistributed, (vii) the license is not specific to a product, and (viii) the
|
||
license is technologically neutral (i.e., it does not [require] an explicit gesture of
|
||
assent in order to establish a contract between licensor and licensee).</p>
|
||
<p>This license grants all rights under the owner's copyrights (as well as an
|
||
implied patent license), disclaims all liability for use of the code (including
|
||
intellectual property infringement liability), and requires that all subsequent
|
||
copies of the code [except machine-executable object code], including partial copies and derivative works, include the
|
||
license.</p>
|
||
|
||
<h2><a name="FAQ">FAQ</a></h2>
|
||
|
||
<p><b>How is the Boost license different from the
|
||
<a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php">GNU General Public
|
||
License (GPL)</a>?</b></p>
|
||
|
||
<p>The Boost license permits the creation of derivative works for commercial or
|
||
non-commercial use with no legal requirement to release your source code. Other
|
||
differences include Boost not requiring reproduction of copyright messages for
|
||
object code redistribution. The GPL is also much longer.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p><b>Why the phrase "machine-executable object code generated by a source
|
||
language processor"?</b></p>
|
||
|
||
<p>To distinguish cases where we do not require reproduction of the copyrights
|
||
and license, such as object libraries, shared libraries, and final program
|
||
executables, from cases where reproduction is still required, such as
|
||
distribution of self-extracting archives of source code or precompiled header
|
||
files. More detailed wording was rejected as not being legally necessary, and
|
||
reducing readability.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p><b>Why is the "disclaimer" paragraph of the license entirely in uppercase?</b></p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Capitalization of these particular provisions is a US legal mandate for
|
||
consumer protection. (Diane Cabell)</p>
|
||
|
||
<p><b>Does the copyright and license cover interfaces too?</b></p>
|
||
|
||
<p>The conceptual interface to a library isn't covered. The particular
|
||
representation expressed in the header is covered, as is the documentation,
|
||
examples, test programs, and all the other material that goes with the library.
|
||
A different implementation is free to use the same logical interface, however.
|
||
Interface issues have been fought out in court several times; ask a lawyer for
|
||
details.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p><b>Why doesn't the license prohibit the copyright holder from patenting the
|
||
covered software?</b></p>
|
||
|
||
<p>No one who distributes their code under the terms of this license could turn
|
||
around and sue a user for patent infringement. (Devin Smith)</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Boost's lawyers were well aware of patent provisions in licenses like the GPL
|
||
and CPL, and would have included such provisions in the Boost license if they
|
||
were believed to be legally useful.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p><b>Why doesn't the copyright message say "All rights reserved"?</b></p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Devin Smith says "I don't think it belongs in the copyright notice for
|
||
anything (software, electronic documentation, etc.) that is being licensed. It
|
||
belongs in books that are sold where, in fact, all rights (e.g., to reproduce
|
||
the book, etc.) are being reserved in the publisher or author. I think it
|
||
shouldn't be in the BSD license."</p>
|
||
|
||
<h2><a name="Transition">Transition</a></h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>To ease the transition of the code base towards the new common
|
||
license, several people decided to give a <a
|
||
href="blanket-permission.txt">blank permission</a> for all
|
||
their contributions to use the new license. This hopefully helps
|
||
maintainers to switch to the new license once the list contains enough
|
||
names without asking over and over again for each change. Please
|
||
consider adding your name to the list.</p>
|
||
|
||
<h2><a name="Acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
|
||
<p>Dave Abrahams led the Boost effort to develop better licensing. The legal
|
||
team was led by
|
||
<a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/cabell/index.html">Diane Cabell</a>,
|
||
Director, Clinical Programs, <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu">Berkman
|
||
Center for Internet & Society</a>, Harvard Law School.
|
||
<a href="http://www.nixonpeabody.com/attorneys_detail1.asp?ID=121">Devin Smith</a>, attorney, <a href="http://www.nixonpeabody.com/default.asp">
|
||
Nixon Peabody LLP</a>, wrote the Boost License. Eva Chan, Harvard Law School,
|
||
contributed analysis of Boost issues and drafts of various legal documents.
|
||
Boost members reviewed drafts of the license. Beman Dawes wrote this web page.</p>
|
||
<hr>
|
||
<p>Revised
|
||
<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" S-Type="EDITED" S-Format="%d %B, %Y" startspan -->03 December, 2003<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" endspan i-checksum="39365" --></p>
|
||
|
||
<p> <20> Copyright Beman Dawes, Daniel Frey 2003.</p>
|
||
<p> Use, modification, and distribution are subject to the Boost Software
|
||
License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">
|
||
LICENSE_1_0.txt</a> or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt">
|
||
www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)</p>
|
||
|
||
</body>
|
||
|
||
</html>
|