Licensing: Boost library distributed with my MIT-licensed code [closed]

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I want to release some C++ code under MIT license in GitHub. I would like to include required BOOST libraries in the repository. No commercial use is currently foreseen. I am pretty new to IP issues, sorry if these questions are obvious.

1. Can I freely redistribute BOOST binaries in my GitHub repository?

2. Do I need to include the BOOST license additionally to the MIT license for my code?

Answer 1

1.Can I freely redistribute BOOST binaries in my GitHub repository?

Yes, you can. The Boost software license reads (emphasis mine):

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person or organization obtaining a copy of the software and accompanying documentation covered by this license (the "Software") to use, reproduce, display, distribute, execute, and transmit the Software, and to prepare derivative works of the Software, and to permit third-parties to whom the Software is furnished to do so

2.Do I need to include the BOOST license additionally to the MIT license for my code?

The license continues:

all subject to the following:

The copyright notices in the Software and this entire statement, including the above license grant, this restriction and the following disclaimer, must be included in all copies of the Software, in whole or in part, and all derivative works of the Software, unless such copies or derivative works are solely in the form of machine-executable object code generated by a source language processor.

Which means that your sourcecode repository must include the license, but you don't have to add the license to any compiled binaries you provide.

And by the way: The fact that "no commercial use is currently foreseen" is usually irrelevant when it comes to open source software. Part of the open source definition by the OSI is:

No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

So any license which is approved as open source by the OSI (and the Boost license is) won't care about any commercial interests you have.