Hi all, Here's Markus answer for our 'little' license issue. So I think we cleared that one, at least for now. I'll make libzlo available in Debian's package again and hope no more license problems arise :) Sorry for all this bothering.
Regards, Alberto ----- Forwarded message from "Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer" <mar...@oberhumer.com> ----- From: "Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer" <mar...@oberhumer.com> To: Alberto Gonzalez Iniesta <a...@agi.as> Subject: Re: Compiling and/or linking liblzo with OpenSSL List-Post: openvpn-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 20:02:55 +0200 X-no-Archive: yes X-GPG-KeyID: 0x0B2043C9 X-GPG-Fingerprint: 1077 CF79 F341 3A50 03A3 93CE 4D61 57AB 0B20 43C9 X-GPG-Keyserver: http://www.keyserver.net/ X-Oberhumer-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy. At least not today. X-SpamProbe: GOOD 0.0000000 7bbc7baf191a36e2abba914d9e5bcf28 Hello Alberto, assuming that OpenSSL is not a system library, which part of OpenSSLs license makes it incompatible with the GPL ? I can't find any exact info on this issue. In any case, I don't feel like globally changing the LZO license, so would something like the following help for OpenVPN ? Please feel free to suggest a better wording. Hereby I grant a special exception to the OpenVPN project (http://openvpn.sourceforge.net) to link the LZO library with the OpenSSL library (htttp://www.openssl.org). Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer Cheers, Markus On Wed, 30 Apr 2003 19:42:21 +0200 Alberto Gonzalez Iniesta wrote: > On Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 04:17:01PM +0200, Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer wrote: > > Hello Alberto, > > > > very sorry for _this_ long delay, but my old university email account is > > not active any longer... > > Hi Markus! > It's OK, I'm happy to hear from you. I should have imagined that and > searched the net for a more recent address. > > > Could you explain a little bit why the licenses are incompatible - the > > OpenSSL FAQ claims it is fine for "the major Linux and BSD distributions", > > and the GPL FAQ does not say too much either. > > > > What is the exact problem here ? > > > > The difference is that GPL allows linking with libraries that are part of > the OS with no restrictions. Since OpenSSL can be considered part of some > Linux and BSD distros, linking LZO (or other GPL software) with OpenSSL > it's OK in those. > > It's not really clear if OpenSSL is 'part' of Debian (or other distros), > or and 'additional library', and since we (in Debian) are very picky about > licenses, we chose to take LZO from OpenVPN. Just in case. > > I know I'm not being very clear. That's because a) it's not a very > defined problem (what can be considered linking, what is part of the OS > and what isn't,...) and b) I don't fully understand this myself. > > Please take a look at OpenVPN's discussion about this subject if you > want to know more about this: > > http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=2033036&forum_id=8482 > > > > In any case, would a short (possibly PGP signed) README.LZO help that says > > something like "Hereby I grant the OpenVPN project > > (http://openvpn.sourceforge.net) > > to link the LZO library with the OpenSSL library (htttp://www.openssl.org)". > > That should be OK. Even the sentence from OpenSSL FAQ: > This program is released under the GPL with the additional exemption > that compiling, linking, and/or using OpenSSL is allowed. > > > That is because the full paragraph of the OpenVPN special exception is more > > than unclear to me, e.g. "[...] If you do not wish to do so, delete this > > exception statement from your version." ??? > > That only means that any one using OpenVPN's source can take out this > exception from the license (In case the want a pure GPL license). > > Anyway, thanks for getting back to me. Let me know if you want more help > understanding this issue, and I'll take the subject to debian-legal list > where some one with more knowledge about licenses can help us. > > Best regards, > > Alberto > > > PS. GPGing mail as your homepage instructs :) -- Markus Oberhumer, <mar...@oberhumer.com>, http://www.oberhumer.com/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Alberto Gonzalez Iniesta | They that give up essential liberty agi@(agi.as|debian.org) | to obtain a little temporary safety Encrypted mail preferred | deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin Key fingerprint = 9782 04E7 2B75 405C F5E9 0C81 C514 AF8E 4BA4 01C3
