-----Original Message----- From: boost-bounces@lists.boost.org [mailto:boost-bounces@lists.boost.org] On Behalf Of James Fowler Sent: 28 January 2009 22:36 To: boost@lists.boost.org Subject: Re: [boost] Two minor (?) legal-related questions
IANAL, but I have worked with quite a bit with both doxygen and
licensing issues. As I understand it anything related to protecting IP is best applied as consistently as possible. Aesthetically, I'd prefer to have the doxygen block first, but that might add some (admittedly small) amount of risk. If it was just a copyright statement, it would probably be too trivial to bother, but referring to an external license agreement is a more complex issue. I'm not really sure it matters, but I'm 99.88% certain that if it does matter, it's best to always have the copyright / license block at the very beginning.
My $0.02 : doxygen's more flexible than lawyers, keep the copyright/license block first. FWIW, that's how I format my own code, even though I think it's uglier. .
I'm struggling to believe that even lawyers are that picky, but could we run this by our 'tame and friendly' legal adviser? Our current guideline at http://www.boost.org/development/requirements.html says Begin all source files (including programs, headers, scripts, etc.) with: * A comment line describing the contents of the file. * Comments describing copyright and licensing: again, the preferred form is indicated in the license information page * Note that developers should not provide a copy of LICENSE_1_0.txt with their libraries: Boost distributions already include a copy in the Boost root directory. * A comment line referencing your library on the Boost web site. For example: The comment line I presume includes a Doxygenated comment /*! \file my_stuff.hpp \brief This does stuff. \details Blah, blah... \author Paul A. Bristow */ ... http://www.boost.org/development/header.html Unless multiple inclusion is intended, wrap the header in #ifndef guards. Use a naming convention that minimizes the chance of clashes with macro names from other's code. The sample header uses the Boost convention of all uppercase letters, with the header name prefixed by the namespace name, and suffixed with HPP, separated by underscores. The example given is // Boost general library furball.hpp header file ---------------------------// < Copyright and license notice, as indicated in the license page > // See http://www.boost.org/ for latest version. #ifndef BOOST_FURBALL_HPP #define BOOST_FURBALL_HPP ... It was suggested that the include guard should come first. Does this really have any advantage? Personally I think the current recommendations are right. Paul --- Paul A. Bristow Prizet Farmhouse Kendal, UK LA8 8AB +44 1539 561830, mobile +44 7714330204 pbristow@hetp.u-net.com