>"Is my work a derivate work?", I guess is the gist of the question. How >do you firewall it? Does a contract with a third party need to address >the boundary of boost code (which maybe modified and embedded or not) >and the proprietary code.
Serious answers to those questions are way too complex for an email reply. I'm not qualified in any case. Your best bet is to buy a book on the topic. Perhaps "Copyright Your Software" by Stephen Fishman. See http://www.nolo.com/lawstore/products/product.cfm/ObjectID/991DEF76-7EAC-402F-A36984BEADE9DB53
(I haven't read it. I've got an older book, How to Copyright Software" by MJ Salone, from the same publisher, but it is now out-of-print. It is available used on Amazon.)
> >__________ > >If I have the desire to license source code, which uses boost code, to a >third party, on the basis that my code may not be redistributed then >this statement confuses the issue if I am a derivative work. > >For example, I build a risk system for an asset manager. I use some >boost, perhaps modified. I include the license as required... and I get >confused trying to separate the consequences in a contract with the >third party. I had one such messy contract that took over a year to >resolve to mutual agreement :-( > >Perhaps this is a non issue as the issue may exist for alternative >licenses.
I think other licenses have the same problem. I ran into it years before Boost, and solved it by keeping the open-source code clearly separated from the proprietary (and actually delivered on separate disks, to emphasize the difference.) The proprietary code used the open-source code, but was not derived from the open-source code. Use is one thing, derivation is another.
>PS: does #include <boost/any_old_header.hpp> make you a derived work?
No. That is use, but not derivation. But if instead of #include, you pasted in a legally significant portion of <boost/any_old_header.hpp>, that would make your program a derived work. Note that if you pasted in code from several sources, your code might become a derived work of each of those sources.
HTH,
--Beman
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