Re: transitive GPL (exim4, OpenSSL, mySQL and others)

[Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au>]

Marc Haber <mh+debian-legal@zugschlus.de> writes:

> The former [relicensing component parts under compatible licenses]
> is not an option for OpenSSL (has probably been tried millions of
> times)

Never say never; popular works do sometimes change licenses from
community pressure to be compatible. I haven't tried it myself in the
case of OpenSSL, though, so I can't gainsay your specific statement of
multiple attempts.

> and the latter [replacing components with functional equivalents
> under compatible licenses] is, in the majority of users' opinion,
> not an option because GnuTLS has major interoperability issues to be
> actually useable.

I keep seeing this claim made, but the specifics elude me. This thread
isn't really the place to detail it, though.

Is there a clearing-house site showing exactly what the problems are
for a project wanting to move from OpenSSL to GnuTLS, and why those
problems are so insurmountable that GnuTLS cannot be improved to
overcome them despite "the majority of users" wanting those
improvements?

-- 
 \         "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur."  ("Whatever is |
  `\                    said in Latin, sounds profound.") —anonymous |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney