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-<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">
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-<title>Boost Software License Background</title>
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-<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
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- <tr>
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- <td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><img src="../boost.png" alt="boost.png (6897 bytes)" width="277" height="86"></td>
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- <td><a href="../index.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>Home</big></font></a></td>
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- <td><a href="../libs/libraries.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>Libraries</big></font></a></td>
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- <td><a href="../people/people.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>People</big></font></a></td>
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- <td><a href="faq.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>FAQ</big></font></a></td>
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- <td><a href="index.htm"><font face="Arial" color="#FFFFFF"><big>More</big></font></a></td>
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- </tr>
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-</table>
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-
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-<h1>Information about the <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">Boost Software License</a> </h1>
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-
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-<p><a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">License text</a><br>
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-<a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a><br>
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-<a href="#History">History</a><br>
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-<a href="#Rationale">Rationale</a><br>
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-<a href="#FAQ">FAQ</a><br>
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-<a href="#Transition">Transition</a><br>
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-<a href="#Acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></p>
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-
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-<h2><a name="Introduction">Introduction</a></h2>
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-
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-<p>The <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">Boost Software License</a>
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-specifies the terms and conditions of use for those Boost libraries
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-that it covers.</p>
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-
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-<p>Currently, some Boost libraries have their own licenses. The hope is that
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-eventually all Boost libraries will be covered by the Boost Software
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-License. In the meantime, <b>all</b> libraries comply with the <a
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-href="#requirements">Boost License requirements</a>.</p>
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-
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-<h2><a name="History">History</a></h2>
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-
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-<p>As Boost grew, it became unmanageable for each Boost file to have
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-its own license. Users complained that each license needed to be reviewed, and that
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-reviews were difficult or impossible if Boost libraries contained many different licenses.
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-Boost moderators and maintainers spent excessive time dealing with license
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-issues. Boost developers often copied existing licenses without actually knowing
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-if the license wording met legal needs.</p>
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-<p>To clarify these licensing issues, the Boost moderators asked for help from
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-the <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu">Berkman Center for Internet & Society</a>
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-at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It was requested that a
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-single Boost license be developed that met the traditional requirements that Boost licenses, particularly:</p>
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-
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-<a name="requirements"></a>
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-<ul>
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- <li>Must be simple to read and understand. </li>
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- <li>Must grant permission without fee to copy, use and modify the software for
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- any use (commercial and non-commercial). </li>
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- <li>Must require that the license appear with all copies [including
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- redistributions] of the software source code. </li>
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- <li>Must not require that the license appear with executables or other binary
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- uses of the library. </li>
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- <li>Must not require that the source code be available for execution or other
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- binary uses of the library. </li>
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-</ul>
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-
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-<p>Additionally, other common open source licenses were studied to see what
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-additional issues were being treated, and additions representing good legal
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-practice were also requested. The result is the <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">Boost
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-Software License</a>.</p>
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-
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-<h2><a name="Rationale">Rationale</a></h2>
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-
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-<p>The following rationale was provided by Devin Smith, the
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-lawyer who wrote the Boost Software License. It has been edited slightly for
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-brevity. Editorial additions are shown in square brackets.</p>
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-
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-<h3>Benefit of Common Software License</h3>
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-<p>If one of Boost's goals is to ease use and adoption of the various
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-libraries made available by Boost, it does make sense to try to
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-standardize the licenses under which the libraries are made available to
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-users. (I make some recommendations about a possible short-form license
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-below.)</p>
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-<p>[Standardizing the license will not] necessarily address the issue of satisfying
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-corporate licensees. Each corporation will have its own concerns, based
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-on their own experiences with software licensing and distribution and,
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-if they're careful, will want to carefully review each license, even if
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-they've been told that they're all standard. I would expect that,
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-unless we're remarkably brilliant (or lucky) in drafting the standard
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-Boost license, the standard license won't satisfy the legal departments
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-of all corporations. I imagine that some will, for instance, absolutely
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-insist that licensors provide a warranty of title and provide
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-indemnification for third-party intellectual property infringement
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-claims. Others may want functional warranties. (If I were advising the
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-corporations, I would point out that they're not paying anything for the
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-code and getting such warranties from individual programmers, who
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-probably do not have deep pockets, is not that valuable anyway, but
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-other lawyers may disagree.)</p>
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-<p>But this can be addressed, not by trying to craft the perfect standard
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-license, but by informing the corporations that they can, if they don't like the
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-standard license, approach the authors to negotiate a different, perhaps even
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-paid, license.</p>
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-<p>One other benefit of adopting a standard license is to help ensure that
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-the license accomplishes, from a legal perspective, what the authors
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-intend. For instance, many of the [original] licenses for the libraries available
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-on boost.org do not disclaim the warranty of title, meaning that the
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-authors could, arguably, be sued by a user if the code infringes the
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-rights of a third party and the user is sued by that third party. I
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-think the authors probably want to disclaim this kind of liability.</p>
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-<h3>Short-Form License</h3>
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-<p>Without in anyway detracting from the draft license that's been
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-circulated [to Boost moderators], I'd like to propose an alternative "short-form" license that
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-Boost could have the library authors adopt. David [Abrahams] has expressed a
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-desire to keep things as simple as possible, and to try to move away
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-from past practice as little as possible, and this is my attempt at a
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-draft.</p>
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-<p>This license, which is very similar to the BSD license and the MIT
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-license, should satisfy the Open Source Initiative's Open Source
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-Definition: (i) the license permits free redistribution, (ii) the
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-distributed code includes source code, (iii) the license permits the
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-creation of derivative works, (iv) the license does not discriminate
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-against persons or groups, (v) the license does not discriminate against
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-fields of endeavor, (vi) the rights apply to all to whom the program is
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-redistributed, (vii) the license is not specific to a product, and (viii) the
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-license is technologically neutral (i.e., it does not [require] an explicit gesture of
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-assent in order to establish a contract between licensor and licensee).</p>
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-<p>This license grants all rights under the owner's copyrights (as well as an
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-implied patent license), disclaims all liability for use of the code (including
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-intellectual property infringement liability), and requires that all subsequent
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-copies of the code [except machine-executable object code], including partial copies and derivative works, include the
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-license.</p>
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-
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-<h2><a name="FAQ">FAQ</a></h2>
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-
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-<p><b>How should Boost programmers apply the license to source and
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-header files?</b></p>
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-
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-<p>Add a comment based on the following template, substituting
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-appropriate text for the italicized portion:
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-<br>
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-<br>
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-<pre>
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-// Copyright <i>Joe Coder 2004 - 2006</i>.
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-// Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0.
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-// (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at
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-// http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)
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-</pre>
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-<br>
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-Please leave an empty line before and after the above comment block.
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-It is fine if the copyright and license messages are not on different lines; in
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-no case there should be other intervening text. Do not include
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-"All rights reserved" anywhere.<br>
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-
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-<p>Other ways of licensing source files have been considered, but some
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-of them turned out to unintentionally nullify legal elements of the
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-license. Having fixed language for referring to the license helps
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-corporate legal departments evaluate the boost distribution.
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-Creativity in license reference language is strongly discouraged, but
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-judicious changes in the use of whitespace are fine.
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-
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-<p><b>How should the license be applied to documentation files, instead?</b></p>
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-
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-<p>Very similarly to the way it is applied to source files: the user should
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-see the very same text indicated in the template above, with the only difference
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-that both the local and the web copy of LICENSE_1_0.txt should be linked to.
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-Refer to the HTML source code of this page in case of doubt.
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-
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-<p>Note that the location of the local LICENSE_1_0.txt needs to be indicated
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-relatively to the position of your documentation file
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-(<code>../LICENSE_1_0.txt</code>, <code>../../LICENSE_1_0.txt</code> etc.)</p>
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-
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-<p><b>How is the Boost license different from the
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-<a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php">GNU General Public
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-License (GPL)</a>?</b></p>
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-
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-
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-<p>The Boost license permits the creation of derivative works for
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-commercial or non-commercial use with no legal requirement to release
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-your source code. Other differences include Boost not requiring
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-reproduction of copyright messages for object code redistribution, and
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-the fact that the Boost license is not "viral": if you
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-distribute your own code along with some Boost code, the Boost license
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-applies only to the Boost code (and modified versions thereof); you
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-are free to license your own code under any terms you like. The GPL is
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-also much longer, and thus may be harder to understand.</p>
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-
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-<p><b>Why the phrase "machine-executable object code generated by a source
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-language processor"?</b></p>
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-
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-<p>To distinguish cases where we do not require reproduction of the copyrights
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-and license, such as object libraries, shared libraries, and final program
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-executables, from cases where reproduction is still required, such as
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-distribution of self-extracting archives of source code or precompiled header
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-files. More detailed wording was rejected as not being legally necessary, and
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-reducing readability.</p>
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-
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-<p><b>Why is the "disclaimer" paragraph of the license entirely in uppercase?</b></p>
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-
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-<p>Capitalization of these particular provisions is a US legal mandate for
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-consumer protection. (Diane Cabell)</p>
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-
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-<p><b>Does the copyright and license cover interfaces too?</b></p>
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-
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-<p>The conceptual interface to a library isn't covered. The particular
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-representation expressed in the header is covered, as is the documentation,
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-examples, test programs, and all the other material that goes with the library.
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-A different implementation is free to use the same logical interface, however.
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-Interface issues have been fought out in court several times; ask a lawyer for
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-details.</p>
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-
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-<p><b>Why doesn't the license prohibit the copyright holder from patenting the
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-covered software?</b></p>
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-
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-<p>No one who distributes their code under the terms of this license could turn
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-around and sue a user for patent infringement. (Devin Smith)</p>
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-
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-<p>Boost's lawyers were well aware of patent provisions in licenses like the GPL
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-and CPL, and would have included such provisions in the Boost license if they
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-were believed to be legally useful.</p>
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-
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-<p><b>Why doesn't the copyright message say "All rights reserved"?</b></p>
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-
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-<p>Devin Smith says "I don't think it belongs in the copyright notice for
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-anything (software, electronic documentation, etc.) that is being licensed. It
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-belongs in books that are sold where, in fact, all rights (e.g., to reproduce
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-the book, etc.) are being reserved in the publisher or author. I think it
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-shouldn't be in the BSD license."</p>
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-
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-<p><b>Do I have to copyright/license trivial files?</b>
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-
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-<p>Even a test file that just contains an empty <code>main()</code>
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-should have a copyright. Files without copyrights make corporate
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-lawyers nervous, and that's a barrier to adoption. The more of Boost
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-is uniformly copyrighted and licensed, the less problem people will
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-have with mounting a Boost release CD on a corporate server.
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-
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-
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-<p><b>Can I use the Boost license for my own projects outside Boost?</b>
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-
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-<p>Sure; there are no restrictions on the use of the license itself.
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-
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-<h2><a name="Transition">Transition</a></h2>
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-
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-<p>To ease the transition of the code base towards the new common
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-license, several people decided to give a <a
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-href="blanket-permission.txt">blanket permission</a> for all
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-their contributions to use the new license. This hopefully helps
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-maintainers to switch to the new license once the list contains enough
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-names without asking over and over again for each change. Please
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-consider adding your name to the list.</p>
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-
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-<h2><a name="Acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</a></h2>
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-<p>Dave Abrahams led the Boost effort to develop better licensing. The legal
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-team was led by
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-<a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/cabell/index.html">Diane Cabell</a>,
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-Director, Clinical Programs, <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu">Berkman
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-Center for Internet & Society</a>, Harvard Law School.
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-<a href="http://www.nixonpeabody.com/attorneys_detail1.asp?ID=121">Devin Smith</a>, attorney, <a href="http://www.nixonpeabody.com/default.asp">
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-Nixon Peabody LLP</a>, wrote the Boost License. Eva Chan, Harvard Law School,
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-contributed analysis of Boost issues and drafts of various legal documents.
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-Boost members reviewed drafts of the license. Beman Dawes wrote this web page.</p>
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-<hr>
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-<p>Revised
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-<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" S-Type="EDITED" S-Format="%d %B, %Y" startspan -->27 August, 2004<!--webbot bot="Timestamp" endspan i-checksum="39365" --></p>
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-
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-<p> © Copyright 2003-2004 Beman Dawes, Daniel Frey, David Abrahams.</p>
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-<p> Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0.
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-(See accompanying file <a href="../LICENSE_1_0.txt">LICENSE_1_0.txt</a> or
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-copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt">www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)
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-</p>
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-
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-</body>
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-</html>
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Daniel James