Re: Freeradius and Debian
>>>>> "Steve" == Steve Langasek <vorlon@netexpress.net> writes:
Steve> On Sat, Nov 23, 2002 at 01:57:17PM -0500, Chad Miller
Steve> wrote:
>> However, _now_ there might be some possible legal problems with
>> it. The postgresql driver links against libssl, which has a
>> license that forbids linking against GPL'd code.
>> I'm CCing debian-legal list to get opinions on whether linking
>> against libpg, which then requires linking against libssl, is
>> verboten.
Steve> Indirect linking is still linking, and the GPL prohibits
Steve> linking with code and distributing the binaries if the
Steve> other code can't also be distributed under the terms of the
Steve> GPL. Either the freeradius postgresql module cannot be
Steve> distributed, or a version of the postgresql libs that don't
Steve> link against libssl must be made available (either by
Steve> stripping out ssl support, or by using gnutls).
I'm not sure this is true for the Postgres libraries, because the
postgres libraries can function fine without ssl support and no ssl
code is linked into your application.
Basically the library linking argument is a functionality argument and
I think part of the construction may fail in this case.
I'm not presenting a coherent enough argument to convince debian-legal
I'm right; I'm too lazy to do so and it would involve significant
research on my part. Instead I'm trying to convince interested
parties that the fact that there exists a library that is GPL
compatible and that has the exact same interface may interact with the
anti-linking argument. If someone actually wants to see free radius
with postgres in Debian, it might be worth their time to do the
necessary research to determine whether I'm confused.
Reply to: