Re: GnuTLS in Debian

[Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be>]

On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 02:38:50PM +0000, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> Steve Langasek dixit:
> 
> >of GPLv3, and explicitly did not.  In fact, the system library exception is
> >now defined even more narrowly than for GPLv2, so that it now covers only
> >language runtime libraries.  I think this was a poor choice on the FSF's
> 
> Is it really?
> 
> |  A "Standard Interface" means an interface that either is an official
> |standard defined by a recognized standards body, or, in the case of
> |interfaces specified for a particular programming language, one that
> |is widely used among developers working in that language.
> 
> OpenSSL is an interface specified for C and widely used among
> developers working in C. And OpenSSL is the "de facto" standard
> for crypto, hashes and SSL (and one of the major contenders for
> bignum) in C, on Unix.

I understand the intention of that differently than you do and
find the word "widely" in it ambigious.  I think the "specified
for a particular programming language" is important and is
different than "implemented in a particular programming language".
OpenSSL is a de facto crypto standard, not a de facto C standard.

I want to compare it with priority=standard, so that everyone
expect that to be available when writing in that language.
OpenSSL might be widely used, but not that widely that you think
it's part of the language.

Comparing this with some other languages, of what I think would
be part of the standard interface:
- perl: The packages perl + perl-modules, no extra modules
- php: What you can run with php5-cli / php5 without modules
- java: What's in the jre
- C++: libc and libstdc++ functions, STL.  You can argue over
  boost as some compilers actually ship with that and their
  intention is to be a standard library/interface.


Kurt