Re: Boost libraries

[Mike Miller]

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 18:26:49 +0200, JuanPi wrote:
> Indeed the bernoulli function is not available in my distro, so I am
> using a custom install of Boost. It was just an example... there are
> several TODOs of Octave that could be easily completed via boost...

If Octave itself gains a dependency on Boost someday, it could be made
optional if necessary with Autoconf/Automake detection and conditional
compilation where needed just like all the other numerical and
graphical libraries we use.

> What about the license issue brought up by Olaf?

IMHO it's a non-issue. I do not believe it to be a concern for you as
a developer who wants to write an oct-file that links with both Octave
and Boost.

I don't see any legal difference between an oct-file that calls a
Boost function and an oct-file that calls an ATLAS function or a
GraphicsMagick function. IOW, nothing new here.

If you want to grab pieces of Boost and paste them into your oct-file,
that's different. Or if you want to distribute binary object code
containing your oct-file along with pre-compiled Octave and Boost,
that's different. But if you write an oct-file that calls a Boost
function, the license of that individual source file can be the same
as that of any other oct-file.

IANAL, this is just my opinion...

-- 
mike