Re: Bacula: GPL and OpenSSL
John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
> On Thu, Jun 07, 2007 at 12:17:28PM -0700, Walter Landry wrote:
>> GnuTLS + libgcrypt + libtasn1 implements everything unless you need
>> ECC.
>>
>> > And why does FSFE disagree with our interpretation?
>>
>> Michael Poole gave a good answer.
>
> He didn't address the FSFE -- where are they taking a different analysis
> than us on this?
I have not seen a specific statement from FSFE on the question, so I
do not know and I had preferred not to guess.
I suspect that their analysis was more liberal on -- or overlooked --
the angle of Debian as distributor of OpenSSL in accompaniment with
GPLed works that are linked against it. Perhaps the FSF's intent for
the GPL is to allow a more LGPL-like option with regards to system
libraries; that would make sense and I think not sacrifice software
freedoms. However, I have not seen a defensible way to construe the
actual wording other than the one that classifies Debian's method of
distribution as each work accompanied by the other(s).
[As a side note, I think that resolving this in favor of allowing
works under the plain GPL to dynamically link against OpenSSL would
allow the aggregation of binary firmware blobs into a package of the
Linux kernel. The lack of source for those blobs would still bar them
from "main", but it would not be a license issue. This is meant
simply as an observation, not a judgment of whether that would be a
good or bad result.]
I am not a lawyer, but I belive that most lawyers urge clients to err
on the side of caution when straying from a strict interpretation of
license -- or even when interpreting ambiguous clauses. I try to
follow that guide when making suggestions on what a license permits.
In this case, the wording is consistent and clear, although in an
unfortunate direction, and I would not want to rely on extrinsic
evidence[1] about the GPL's meaning if I were in court.
[1]- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parol_evidence_rule
Michael Poole
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