Re: Bacula and OpenSSL (original) (raw)

On Thu, Jul 12, 2007 at 06:06:14PM +0200, Shane M. Coughlan wrote:

  1. You recently mentioned to me that GPL v3 may be a solution. Like Linus, I don't see any reason to switch to GPL v3, but if using GPL v3 makes Bacula compatible with OpenSSL AND all distros are happy with that, it seems to me to be an easy solution. I know that GPL v3 is compatible with the Apache license, but can you confirm whether or not it is compatible with whatever OpenSSL uses? I would also appreciate having Debian's legal view on this question.

There was the possibility that the final GPLv3 might turn out compatible with the OpenSSL licence. However, the published GPLv3 is not compatible with the OpenSSL licence. To be sure I also confirmed this with Brett Smith at FSF in Boston.

I agree that the GPLv3 is not "compatible" with the OpenSSL license, in the sense that code licensed under the OpenSSL license cannot be included in a GPLv3 work. However, the GPLv3 does include a broader (if no more easily understood) system exception clause, which seems to allow distributing GPLv3 binaries that are /dynamically linked/ against OpenSSL. Is this not the position of FSF/FSF Europe?

  1. Barring item 2, it seems to me that the only solution is to eliminate all third party software from Bacula and change the license to less restrictive one that permits Bacula being linked with any Open Source software.

The issue flagged by Fedora concerned that third-party code. In essence: If you remove all the vanilla GPLv2 or later software from Bacula you could also move back to your previous GPL+extra clauses license, or to a GPLv3 + OpenSSL exception license.

Is there some reason that marking only his code as GPLv2 + OpenSSL exception, making it clear that other code (and which other code) included in Bacula does not have such an exception, would not be acceptable to all parties? Granting an additional permission is not modifying the GPL, and as long as the permission is detachable it would not make the license incompatible with the vanilla GPLv2 used in other parts of the work; and that would permit distributors to make an informed decision whether to excise the GPLv2-only code in order to distribute binaries linked against OpenSSL.

Thanks,

Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. vorlon@debian.org http://www.debian.org/

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