Maciej Sobczak <prog@msobczak.com> writes:
David Abrahams wrote:
3. I'd just say "go ahead," but I know how these things work in companies. The question to the PR department triggers a discussion with the legal department and they both decide it would be safer for the company if their use of open source software were not publicized.
Which questions the whole idea of "Who's using Boost".
Your goal should be to provide a testimonies of those who are *proud* users of Boost - only then you can publish the list and call it "Boost success stories".
If you want to publish the info even *knowing* that this might not be intended from the point of view of any not-so-proud user, then your list stops to be a list of "success stories" anymore and becomes a nitpick list, which can be titled "Boost shame stories".
Sorry, but I think you should slow down and reflect.
I spent some time thinking about your points. I think the whole question of pride or shame is a red herring. If PR and legal get together and decide that they don't want it widely known that the company is relying on open-source software, it means nothing about whether the company as a whole is proud of their use. In the worst case, just going through this authorization process causes the company to stop using open source altogether, because while they aren't required to reproduce the BSL in their literature, that isn't true of some other licenses. All that said, anyone with serious reservations about this is welcome to go through the approval process with any company they like. If you receive a negative response and the respondent is aware of the other publicly available information I would be happy to have the entry pulled from the list. We have enough people directly reporting their use of Boost that it won't matter very much. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com