-----Original Message----- From: Boost [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of Niall Douglas via Boost Sent: 12 April 2017 21:56 To: boost@lists.boost.org Cc: Niall Douglas Subject: Re: [boost] Boost licensing information
This issue often confuses users. Especially non native speakers for whom all that perfectly measured legal words make absolutely no sense! Seriously, I need to spend about an hour to understand what a license is talking about. And I *know* the restrictions, it's just unbelievably hard to convert legal words to understanding.
What's worse - BSL is not a very popular license. There's probably only 1-2 pages in non-English languages about BSL on wikipedia. Other wiki pages redirect from BSL to Boost libraries. So for example I can get no information about BSL in Russian. I've tried twice to translate BSL to Russian. Both times the wiki page was removed as a minor/useless topic.
Also, translations prepared by non-lawyers are problematic.
Could we somehow solve the issue in Boost by * also distributing Boost under the MIT license (super extremely very close license) * or by summarizing the differences between BSL and MIT in simple English like here http://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/44116
I would *really* prefer the EUPL over the MIT licence. The EUPL comes in 22 languages and was written to work well in any of the major legal systems in the world, including Russia's.
I'm currently strongly considering placing Outcome and all my Boost like libraries under the EUPL licence. It far better matches the "Licence requirements" at http://www.boost.org/development/requirements.html than the Boost licence does. And it comes in 22 translations as prepared by lawyers in those languages, and those translations have undergone multiple rounds of peer review and checking. It is a far superior licence for Boost code.
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/og_page/european-union-public-lic...
I can't help myself bike shedding that clause 8 looks to have less complete no-liability. "Except in the cases of wilful misconduct or damages directly caused to natural persons, the Licensor will in no event be liable..." IANAL, but might look as though - If someone dies from a life-support software malfunction, the author is on the hook? (Damage to 'un-natural persons' are exempted I note ;-) It looks like a case of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it to me". If your lawyers can't be bothered to read or translate the Boost license, or don't like it - tough? Paul --- Paul A. Bristow Prizet Farmhouse Kendal UK LA8 8AB +44 (0) 1539 561830