"Peter Dimov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > David Abrahams wrote: >> "Peter Dimov" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> >>> * Why is the new license better? >> >> I'll get the lawyers to comment on this in more detail, but here are >> some answers as I understand them: >> >> Big picture: it has been vetted by lawyers for reducing ambiguity >> and risk for corporate legal departments, while protecting Boost >> developers by disclaiming implicit guarantees. > > The underlying assumption being that making source available for > download free of charge leads to implicit guarantees. But I'm not > sure that this is the case. That's why I'm asking.
IIUC, there are no absolutes here (i.e. no law says "there is an implicit guarantee"). Legally, it's just a question of what looks like an attractive/vulnerable target. IIUC, the deal is that without an explicit disclaimer, lawyers feel they have more leverage in claiming that there was an implicit guarantee. >>> I'd like also to point out that it seems to me that the old "in all >>> copies" form is better than the new one; the legal system is >>> sufficiently flexible to reliably recognize a "copy" (i.e. a >>> password protected RAR archive of an mp3 encoded song). >> >> I'm not sure about that. The problem is that the old version didn't >> distinguish source code copies from object code copies. > > I think it does. Object code is not a copy of the source code. > >>> The new wording seems to allow self-extracting archives >>> of "the Software" to not carry the license. >> >> Good point. A simple "copies of the source" might work better than >> the wording we have now. > > It's redundant. The text "all copies" in a source file implies "all copies > of this source file". If you consider object code to be a copy of the > source, changing "copies" to "copies of the source" doesn't help. Sounds convincing to me, but IANAL. Let's see what the lawyers say. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost
