Why is there so much legal paranoia surrounding Boost?

views:

208

answers:

+2 Q:

Why is there so much legal paranoia surrounding Boost?

It seems from reading SO that there's a lot of legal concern about Boost in some companies. Some people are apparently prohibited from using it. Since Boost is licensed under about the most permissive license you could possibly think of, where does this concern stem from.

Edit: People have asked for specific posts. I don't remember where these were, but the reason I'm asking this is because in the context of these posts, nobody detailed the concerns. People just said stuff like they're "not allowed" to use Boost, the implication being that it was for legal reasons, w/o being more specific.

+4 A:

I have worked for such a company.

The hard line was that boost is used without a formal business agreement, therefore if boost.org does something wrong there is no liability.

If, for example, I were able to prove that boost stole intellectual property from me, I could sue any company using boost libraries.

Shmoopty 2009-12-04 22:44:23

And there's probably noone to sue if something goes wrong with the in-house ad-hockery the company probably ended up using instead of Boost either.

dsimcha 2009-12-04 22:49:37

Now you're thinking like a lawyer. :)

Shmoopty 2009-12-04 22:55:47

So I guess they don't let you use any FOSS libraries then, not just Boost?

dsimcha 2009-12-05 01:03:57

The company sold the software at box retailers. All the compiled code in the box had to be purchased, or written in-house. So no FOSS in the commercial product, regardless of license.

Shmoopty 2009-12-05 01:52:24

There's no recourse of liability if there's something wrong in the standard libraries that come with your purchased compiler either. It's routinely disclaimed away in the EULA.

Alan 2009-12-07 22:57:40

@Alan, that would depend on what's wrong. If my compiler vendor had no right to sell me their particular standard library, no EULA would protect them.

Shmoopty 2009-12-08 01:24:40

+1 A:

There are reasons other than legal for not using Boost. For example, for FOSS projects you require your users also to have Boost installed (or distribute it yourself - not nice), which is a big dependancy for small applications.

anon 2009-12-04 22:48:02

But who the heck doesn't have Boost installed on a modern Linux distribution (it is or should be the default)? Boost is a de facto standard C++ lib. And probably nobody regularly compiles from source on Windows b/c distributing binaries for Windows is easier.

dsimcha 2009-12-04 22:51:27

I have a FOSS project or two. Windows users regularly download the source and I assume they are compiling it. And I want my code to be useable on Solaris, HPUX et al.

anon 2009-12-04 22:58:34

If you're talking about compiling from sources, then yes, you need to satisfy the dependancies, this is true of all software, and is a hallmark of FOSS development. No one complains about depending on Qt or glibc if their programs depend on it. On the other hand, when you're talking about binaries, boost is easy to link in, and the end user won't even know it is there.

teeks99 2009-12-08 17:02:30

Au contraire, I complain about any dependancies that prevent me from downloading a single projects source and compiling it.

anon 2009-12-08 17:09:15

ansaurus

tags:

views:

answers:

Why is there so much legal paranoia surrounding Boost?

related questions