On Sat, Jan 11, 2014 at 05:24:16PM +0000, Ben Hutchings wrote: > On Sat, 2014-01-11 at 17:55 +0100, Didier 'OdyX' Raboud wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > this "GnuTLS in Debian" thread triggered my switch of the src:cups > > package from linking against GnuTLS to now link against OpenSSL. CUPS is > > GPL-2 only with an OpenSSL exception. > > > > Today, Andreas rightly pointed to me that this induces a problem (for > > Debian) for all GPL-without-OpenSSL-exception programs linked against > > libcups2. As far as I understand our current stance on that problem, > > GPL-licensed programs without an OpenSSL exception are absolutely > > forbidden to link with it, even indirectly. > [...] > I think this is an absurd interpretation. It is certainly not being > applied to linux-tools, where we have perf linked against libpython > linked against OpenSSL. $ ldd /usr/bin/perf_3.12 |grep ssl $ This is not an analogous situation. libpython does *not* link against OpenSSL; it merely supports dynamically loading libssl on behalf of python programs that request it. So perf is not loading OpenSSL into memory, and there is no GPL problem here. I would suggest dropping the disclaimer from the copyright file, as it's not really applicable. Had the situation actually been analogous, with perf calling into openssl code via libpython, I would have filed a serious bug against linux-tools in response to your message. This is not a matter that maintainers are entitled to exercise their own opinions on; if Debian were to decide to no longer hold itself to the letter of the GPL, that's a decision for the project to make as a whole. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/ slangasek@ubuntu.com vorlon@debian.org
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