On Wed, May 12, 2004 at 11:42:42PM +0200, Cédric Delfosse wrote: > There is two possible solutions to solve this problem: > - your software must be rewritten to use GNUTLS instead of OpenSSL, > - or, your license must add an exception to the GPL which allows > linking with OpenSSL. This wording is too strong. Please moderate it a bit in future correspondence with upstream authors and copyright holders. * There may be other solutions you haven't thought of. The debian-legal mailing list is always available as a resource to Debian package maintainers and upstream authors and copyright holders to explore what those alternatives might be. * The author or copyright holder's software or license "must" not do anything in particular at all. The Debian Project does not present ultimatums to anyone. Telling people what they "must" do sounds very much like that. At the very least, it creates confusion, and at the most, will provoke a hostile reaction and damage Debian's reputation. The Debian Project packages and provides software to its users only as countenanced by the authors and/or copyright holders of that software. Except under unusual circumstances[1], people have no obligation to make anything available to us, or write their software or license in any particular way. We respect the right of software developers to write whatever code they please, however they please. We respect the right of copyright holders to extend license of their exclusive rights under copyright laws to third parties under whatever circumstances they choose within the law. It may occasionally happen that we elect not to distribute a work due to the way it or its license is written, but we are not in a position to make demands of people, and should not give the impression that we are. In the instant case, unlicensed usage of the GPLed Middleman softare with the OpenSSL library is a problem the copyright holders in Middleman have to pursue. We, the Debian Project, are not their agents in this matter. Debian will not knowingly distribute Middleman in contravention of its license. We would like to distribute Middleman under the terms of its license, but have found we cannot do so. We look forward to working with Middleman's author(s) and copyright holder(s) to rectify this situation. [1] e.g., if we are provided binaries of GPLed source code -- G. Branden Robinson | Beware of and eschew pompous Debian GNU/Linux | prolixity. branden@debian.org | -- Charles A. Beardsley http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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