Subject: Re: [boost] copied boost files in other projects
From: Gavin Lambert (gavinl_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-12-12 17:13:34
On 13/12/2016 05:15, Robert Ramey wrote:
> On 12/11/16 6:47 AM, Steven Ross wrote:
>
>> On a related note, somebody asked me to add a new sort call to the
>> Boost.Sort library, I told them we'd need to contact the author to get
>> them
>> to send us a copy with the Boost copyright, and then they told me they
>> copied it and modified it, and sent it to me, and that was ok because it
>> had an open-source license. I assume that I should automatically reject
>> any proposed new library contributions from that individual?
>
> The boost license is pretty unambiguous. Anyone can use it for any
> purpose as long as the original copyright notice is included. Period.
> There is not requirement for notification, permission or anything else.
When the original work is Boost-licensed, sure. But the situation
described here is where the original work has a different license, and
someone has just removed that and replaced it with a Boost one without
asking the original author.
That's ok for public domain and CC-0, and possibly ok for CC-BY, but not
valid for pretty much every other license type.
(The Boost license is very similar to MIT/BSD/Apache licenses, but just
different enough that replacing one with the other without the author's
permission isn't really kosher. And completely unacceptable for GPL or
LGPL.)