For Approval: Boost Software License - Version 1.0 - August 17th, 2003
Donovan Hawkins
hawkins at cephira.com
Sat Sep 15 16:25:50 UTC 2007
On Sat, 15 Sep 2007, Alexander Terekhov wrote (quoting SourceForge):
> This project is being rejected at this time as the selected license is
> not OSI compliant. The main point here is that the license you selected
> does not explicitly state that that the source code may also be freely
> distributed.
That's obviously absurd. The Boost license gives you permission...
"...to use, reproduce, display, distribute, execute, and transmit the
Software, and to prepare derivative works of the Software..."
It then adds that you must include various notices...
"...unless such copies or derivative works are solely in the form of
machine-executable object code generated by a source language processor."
If that license is attached to source code, it seems obvious that the
right to distribute and prepare derivative works applies to the source
code. Beyond the relative absurdity of preparing derivative works from
executables, why would the license distinguish executables if it only
applied to executables?
Of course, the FAQ makes it even more clear. From
http://www.boost.org/more/license_info.html :
"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)."
Apparently Boost wanted to make the license as textually short as
possible. For example (also from the above FAQ):
"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."
I don't agree with their choice (no harm in being unambigous), but I don't
think they left room for doubt on this being a permissive open source
license.
I think the Boost license is somewhat unique in that it allows you to omit
notices if you only distribute the executable (an idea I was planning to
take for the modular permissive license I'm working on). It is worth
adding to the OSI list if that will help the confused people at
SourceForge.
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Donovan Hawkins, PhD "The study of physics will always be
Software Engineer safer than biology, for while the
hawkins at cephira.com hazards of physics drop off as 1/r^2,
http://www.cephira.com biological ones grow exponentially."
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