On Mon, Nov 13, 2000, George Staikos wrote:
> other people must be in this situation too, probably unknowingly. We have to
> resolve this, and if what we are doing is not allowed, it should probably be
> documented in the OpenSSL documentation.
As far as the OpenSSL team is concerned, everybody is free to use OpenSSL.
Unfortunately, the FSF is telling GPL software developers that they are not
allowed to, and as I indicated we can't do anything about it. (The GPL
is the only license with that problem that I know of. You can use OpenSSL
even with the most evil commercially licensed SDK and of course with any
other free software out there. Based on these facts I have come to the
conclusion that that provision of the GPL is obnoxious - but thanks for
caring about my reputation, Michael.)
> [While you are reading this, keep in mind that this is KDE. We have to allow
> redistribution in binary forms, on cds sold by vendors, and more. Some
> platforms will be compiling and linking with a closed source commercial
> compiler, linker and library too (ie HP-UX, IRIX, Solaris). This is not
> negotiable.]
OpenSSL is part of all major free operating systems and one or two commercial
ones. You can use it on those systems, thanks to a special clause in the
GPL. If you want to use it on any other systems, you'll have to change your
license. Sorry.
> > May I dynamically link my GPL-ed application to OpenSSL?
>
> You cannot do this without a special exception, lest redistribution of your
> software will not be legal.
Their own GnuPG is loading proprietary patent-protected modules at runtime.
Is that hypocrisy or what?
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