The serialization library seems to blatantly violate Boost header placement conventions. 1. Normally detail namespaces are for implementation details that should never be touched by a user of the library, but Serialization puts several framework classes designed to be used by archive authors inside of detail subnamespaces. 2. Also, the top-level boost/ directory is supposed to be reserved for non-implementation details, i.e. files with documented purposes that expose the interfaces of accepted libraries, yet boost/pfto.hpp is clearly an implementation detail of the serialization library. It is not a header I would bet any other Boost library would use, but if I'm wrong about that, it should at least be pushed into boost/detail, where common implementation details live. The conundrum of item 2 is partly the from a mistaken organization. boost/archive/ and boost/serialization/ are segments of the same library, and they should have been organized as such. An obvious organization would've been boost/serialization/archive and, e.g., boost/serialization/streaming. Then boost/pfto.hpp could've been boost/serialization/detail/pfto.hpp These unconventional moves are at best confusing for users and other maintainers. The Boost source base is hard enough to control without library authors inventing their own new rules for organizing things. I realize that these problems can't be repaired all at once, but they should be fixed. I'd start by pushing boost/pfto.hpp into boost/detail, for example. -- Dave Abrahams Boost Consulting www.boost-consulting.com