Stephen Gran wrote:
I have been under the impression that the answer is no. You're not linking L to OpenSSL. It could be argued that this was an attempt at defeating the GPL if P was a thin shim layer between L and OpenSSL, but I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that for our default MTA.
Imagine a statically linked P. I do not see how such a thing could be anything less than a combined work of L and OpenSSL (and the rest).
Dynamic linking is a bit tougher, and there has been some controversy over it. Debian's policy, as I understand it, is to be as risk-averse as possible, and assume dynamic linking and static linking are equivalent for all relevant purposes without some explicit statement to the contrary.
Thus, for Debian's purposes, the task is to prove that statically linking L and OpenSSL as part of the process of constructing the P static executable does not cause that resulting executable to be a derivative work of both L and OpenSSL under copyright law.
Frankly, I suspect that it would be impossible to prove such a thing, if only because such a decision would have a massive negative effect on those who make their living from aggressive copyright-mongering, such as the RIAA. But I could be wrong.