Alessandro,
sure, the header file we wrote is a derived work of the pkcs#11 standard
documentation. but that is a book, and what we do is quote certain parts
we need. a book is not a software, there is no license on it, only
copyright. and copyright allows us to quote parts within certain
limitations. but pkcs#11 is a trivial standard: lots of #defined values,
a few structures and a few function definitions. none of those carry
enough weight to be relevant in terms of copyright.
so I think we are fine with what we do. I'm not a lawyer. If you tell me
you are a lawyer and that we have a problem, then I will seek expert
guidence, maybe FSFE, FSF or SFLC can help. but I think that won't be
necessary.
the other question: does the RSA header with its strange license violate
GPL? can we use login + pam + pam_p11 + libp11 + opensc-pkcs11 + opensc?
both libp11 and opensc-pkcs11 use the rsa header file, and login is a
GPL'ed application (so are kdm, gdm, konqueror, and others AFAIK).
I think the answer is yes. sure, I also think this is a grave violation
of the license, but it should be addressed, and now we have the means
to do so.
note: distributions are ok to package all those components, because
login can also use pam modules that are under pure LGPL license,
and some applications using pam are under BSD or LGPL license,
so they can use our software with the RSA header files. it is only
the user who configures login to use pam_p11 who violates the license,
not the distribution that ships a number of components, that can be
combined in both legal and illegal ways.
a non-problem? I don't think so. but you are entiteled to your own
opinion, so that is fine. does it hurt anyone if we replace those
header files? yes, if we are not compatible, but no if we are not.
we will work hard to be/stay compatible.
so the last part is about how we best spend our time. sure, users
would prefer if we spend it on improving opensc. and we want to.
but free software also means that everyone is free to spend time
how everyone pleases. we are all volunteers, we are not paid for
what we do, and still we spend our free time to help others, to answer
questions and to develop opensc in a way we think it improves.
while noone can tell me what to do or force me to do something,
it is custom to help each other, work together for common goals,
and cooperate. and it is very appreciated, if people are thankful
for the help and software they get for free and in turn try to give
something back.
for example everyone can help by improving our documention (wiki pages,
everyone can edit them), answering questions other users might have,
or fixing bugs (see our bug tracker, some bugs or whishlist items
are real easy to do, but noone found the time to implement them so far).
Regards, Andreas
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