Am 15.01.23 um 14:23 schrieb Selva Nair:
Hi,
We would like to be able to continue to build/ship OpenVPN with mbed
TLS. We want all contributors to ask if they agree to license change
that adds explicit permission to link with Apache 2 licensed libraries:
Special exception for linking OpenVPN with Apache 2 licensed libraries:
In addition, as a special exception, OpenVPN Inc and contributors
give permission to link the code of this program to libraries
with the
"APACHE LICENSE, VERSION 2.0", and distribute linked combination
including the two. You must obey the GNU General Public License in
all respects for all of the code used other than these
libraries. If
you modify this file, you may extend this exception to your
version of
the file, but you are not obligated to do so. If you do not wish to
do so, delete this exception statement from your version.
Instead of this exemption I would vote for a change to 'GPL v2 or any
later version'.
That would keep the license in the spirit by which people like me
contributed.
Using an existing license that has already been vetted also avoids the need
for legal counsel.
I do not understand the argument about 'GPLv2 and later...' and embedded
devices. Those who
are currently embedding based on GPL v2 can continue to do so, those who
want/need v3
can do so too. Those who need v3 but also want to lock the firmware on a
consumer device
may be affected. But that's a choice they make, why would we want to
promote that?
Some may find this discussion a waste of time but let's not belittle
people's contributions.
I do care about how my work is licensed.
Okay. I think the embedded thing is a bit of a misunderstanding. I am
not trying to promote that. What I wanted is to express why changing to
GPLv3 might not be an option as some license holders of OpenVPN will not
be okay with changing to GPL3 since they need that.
So the situation is basically, we need somehow to still be able to link
Apache 2.0 licensed SSL libraries. While we have an exception for
OpenSSL, some might argue that this only covers the old OpenSSL license.
So to go forward we either need to change OpenVPN 2.x to a license
compatible with Apache 2.0 like GPL3 or adding an excerption for linking
against Apache 2.0.
At the hackathon we discussed the options and there already voices
against going GPL3 instead of GPL2 but everyone there was okay with
staying with GPL2 and adding an exception.
This approach of taking the exception route instead of GPL3 is mostly a
pragmatic approach to be able to have something that might have a chance
of succeeding.
I (and probably also others) are also to other suggestions how to solve
the problems. I don't know if a change to GPL2+ + exception for Apache2
might a be solution that is more agreeable by more people.
Overall this license situation is quite frustrating and I just looking
for a solution to let OpenVPN continue to work in the future. I don't
think anyone wants to have OpenVPN die on platforms like Windows and
other platforms that do not include OpenSSL as system library. But the
way forward seems very difficult.
Personally I don't think adding an exception to the Apache2 license
violates the spirit of the GPL as it only allows "restrictions" of the
Apache2 designed to protect users of its source code that the GPLv3 also
includes. But from a license standpoint the GPLv2 does not allow these
additional protection (E.g. the patent grant clause).
Arne
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