Re: orphaning fetchmail

[Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org>]

Hi,

On Fri, Dec 15, 2000 at 04:06:06PM -0700, John Galt wrote:
> 
> Okay, I'll spell it out.  Rewriting BSDL'd stuff with the GPL is one of
> the things that really gets in the BSD community's craw.  Basically they
> take it as an "embrace and extend" move by the FSF.  It's rather ironic
> coming from me, but can't we all just forget the BSD/GPL bullshit for once
> and just deal with extension of free software, no matter what the
> license?  If you want to propose projects to rewrite software, why waste
> the effort by rewriting what's already free when there's LOADS of non-free
> software out there that could use a political rewrite?  In fact, I'd say
> that THERE is the worthwhile project: rewrite non-free into DFSG free
> licenses.  Debian is committed to extension of DFSG free software, OpenSSL
> is under the BSDL, so it's already DFSG free--no extension is gained by
> rewriting it, so therefore it's outside the scope of the commitment. 

I think most people agree that OpenSSL is Free Software.
But it is not GPL compatible. So if you want a derived work based on
some GPLed code (e.g. fetchmail, mutt) and OpenSSL then you cannot
distribute the complete work it has added restrictions not in the GPL.

I believe the clauses that are a problem in this case are:

 * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this
 *    software must display the following acknowledgment:
 *    "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
 *    for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit. (http://www.openssl.org/)"

 * 5. Products derived from this software may not be called "OpenSSL"
 *    nor may "OpenSSL" appear in their names without prior written
 *    permission of the OpenSSL Project.

and

 * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
 *    must display the following acknowledgement:
 *    "This product includes cryptographic software written by
 *     Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com)"
 *    The word 'cryptographic' can be left out if the rouines from the library
 *    being used are not cryptographic related :-).

and maybe

 * The licence and distribution terms for any publically available version or
 * derivative of this code cannot be changed.  i.e. this code cannot simply be
 * copied and put under another distribution licence
 * [including the GNU Public Licence.]

So what we need is not so really a GPLed version but at least a GPL
compatible version. (So a 'modern' BSD licensed library would not be a
problem.)

Cheers,

Mark