Re: transitive GPL (exim4, OpenSSL, mySQL and others)

[Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@benfinney.id.au>]

Stephen Gran <sgran@debian.org> writes:

> This one time, at band camp, Marc Haber said:
> > If both M and P were GPL with OpenSSL exception, but L were GPL
> > without OpenSSL exception, this linking would be a violation of
> > L's license?`By virtue of P linking to M and L and M linking to
> > OpenSSL?
> 
> I have been under the impression that the answer is no.  You're not
> linking L to OpenSSL.  It could be argued that this was an attempt at
> defeating the GPL if P was a thin shim layer between L and OpenSSL,

It doesn't need to be "an attempt at defeating the GPL"; I don't think
that question is relevant.

> but I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that for our default MTA.

That would appear to have even less relevance: whaetheer the program
is a "Hello, World" or "our default MTA" wouuld seem to have no
bearing on the question of its status as a derived work of OpenSSL.

What's relevant is whether L is considered, under copyright law, to be
a "derivative work" of those works it is linked with. If M and P are
to be considered derivative of OpenSSL, I don't see the legal theory
that makes L somehow *not* a derivative work of OpenSSL.

-- 
 \       "The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. |
  `\        The pessimist fears it is true."  -- J. Robert Oppenheimer |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney