Hi, On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 04:06:06PM -0700, John Galt wrote: > > Okay, I'll spell it out. Rewriting BSDL'd stuff with the GPL is one of > the things that really gets in the BSD community's craw. Basically they > take it as an "embrace and extend" move by the FSF. It's rather ironic > coming from me, but can't we all just forget the BSD/GPL bullshit for once > and just deal with extension of free software, no matter what the > license? If you want to propose projects to rewrite software, why waste > the effort by rewriting what's already free when there's LOADS of non-free > software out there that could use a political rewrite? In fact, I'd say > that THERE is the worthwhile project: rewrite non-free into DFSG free > licenses. Debian is committed to extension of DFSG free software, OpenSSL > is under the BSDL, so it's already DFSG free--no extension is gained by > rewriting it, so therefore it's outside the scope of the commitment.
I think most people agree that OpenSSL is Free Software. But it is not GPL compatible. So if you want a derived work based on some GPLed code (e.g. fetchmail, mutt) and OpenSSL then you cannot distribute the complete work it has added restrictions not in the GPL. I believe the clauses that are a problem in this case are: * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this * software must display the following acknowledgment: * "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project * for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit. (http://www.openssl.org/)" * 5. Products derived from this software may not be called "OpenSSL" * nor may "OpenSSL" appear in their names without prior written * permission of the OpenSSL Project. and * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software * must display the following acknowledgement: * "This product includes cryptographic software written by * Eric Young ([EMAIL PROTECTED])" * The word 'cryptographic' can be left out if the rouines from the library * being used are not cryptographic related :-). and maybe * The licence and distribution terms for any publically available version or * derivative of this code cannot be changed. i.e. this code cannot simply be * copied and put under another distribution licence * [including the GNU Public Licence.] So what we need is not so really a GPLed version but at least a GPL compatible version. (So a 'modern' BSD licensed library would not be a problem.) Cheers, Mark