[Asterisk-Dev] gnu-tls

[Tzafrir Cohen]

On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 05:38:34PM +1000, Craig Southeren wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Jul 2005 10:14:19 +0300
> Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com> wrote:
> 
> ..deleted
> 
> > On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 12:14:58PM +1200, Derek Smithies wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > Even assuming the license of the parts of gnu-tls that we want are LGPL, 
> > > there are 2 issues I would mention.
> > > 
> > >    The wording of the LGPL has been described as "Tricky" and the meaning 
> > >    is definately up for debate. If us computer experts argue the 
> > >    meaning, what will a court decide ?
> > 
> > Huh? What problems? Any reason why companies like Sun chose to use GTK
> > as the binding for their GUI a couple of years ago if the license was so
> > questionable? Please quote a decent source. 
> 
> For a discussion of possible philosophical problems with the LGPL, see:
> 
> "Why you shouldn't use the Library GPL for your next library",  by
> Richard Stallman at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
> 
> I'd call that reasonably definitive :)

Please. That's GPL vs. LGPL. But a direct answer to those arguments
(for gnu-tls's specific case) could be found in gnu-tls's README, under
'LICENSE ISSUES:'.

> 
> As for license issues, there have been many discussed over the years in
> various projects. They mostly revolve around para 6 of the LGPL.
> 
> As a simple example, para 6 clause b) requires that any derived work
> that uses the library that is not itself GPL-compatible must use a
> "shared library mechanism" in order to use the code. 
> 
> While this is fine for a fully open source project, what about if
> someone wants to create a commercial version of Asterisk (using an
> appropriate license from Digium) on a platform that does not have shared
> libraries? Tough luck - you can't do it.

I'm not sure everybody agree with you here:
http://uclibc.org/FAQ.html#licensing

> 
> Is this scenario a big deal? Maybe not - but it's not a trivial decision
> to make either.
> 
> There are many other issues that have been discussed elsewhere.
> 
> > The license of OpenSSL is certainly problematic.
> 
> Turnabout is fair play :) 
> 
> Please describe the issues you see with the OpenSSL license. It's non
> viral, allows binary and source use with attribution. What's the problem?

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

It is one of the reasons why Asterisk has to use a modified GPL license.
openh323's MPL is a larger source of pains, and the patents of g729 are 
even more so. But my default Asterisk package now does not link with 
openH323 (building so much faster!) and I certainly need no patented 
stuff, so openssl is  what prevents me from distributing plain GPL 
Asterisk.

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen     icq#16849755  +972-50-7952406
tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com  http://www.xorcom.com