Re: Plugins, libraries, licenses and Debian

[bts@alum.mit.edu (Brian T. Sniffen)]

mru@kth.se (Måns Rullgård) writes:

> The thing is that, in my case, some very good functionality is
> provided by plugins using GPL'd libraries.  I want to make sure I can
> distribute those plugins, at least as source.  For reasons that should
> be obvious, I'd rather not touch the GPL.
>
>> The only problem is when you start loading both GPL plugins and
>> GPL-incompatible plugins.  Here, your license is irrelevant; it's the
>> plugin licenses that are in conflict.  A permissive license shouldn't
>> add any new problems, at least.
>
> There is a plugin that uses OpenSSL...

You want to distribute a package which makes takes advantage of code
others have written and distributed under the GPL.  Part of the deal
they offered you was that you could use their code, but in exchange
there would be no restrictions on what you distribute but the GPL's.

You *also* want to have functionality in your package from Eric
Young's SSLeay.  Part of the deal under which he lets you use his code
is the requirement that you advertise for him.

You can't distribute a package which combines all of this and
satisfies all of these requirements.  You have to either forgo the
functionality offered by one of these otherwise generous authors and
write it yourself, or find a way to do it that doesn't involve the
copyrights of these authors.

Distributing it as separate packages -- *really* separate packages,
clearly not a single work which happens to be in multiple volumes --
is OK.  Getting an OpenSSL license exception from all the authors of
the GPL'd libraries could work.  Or you could use the GNUtls package,
which is LGPL'd (though the OpenSSL compatability layer itself is
GPL'd).

-Brian