FreeTDS Development Group

["Mark H. Wood" <mwood AT IUPUI.Edu>]

On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Brian Bruns wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Mar 2002, Steve Langasek wrote:
[snip]
> > A note on this (hmm, this topic seems to be coming up everywhere these
> > days) -- because the OpenSSL license is not GPL-compatible (or more to
> > the point, LGPL-compatible), it's not legal for third parties to ship
> > freetds binaries linked against OpenSSL unless all copyright holders in
> > the FreeTDS code agree to adding a license exception allowing this.  For
> > Debian, I would definitely rather ship NT auth-enabled binaries; and to
> > that end, I hereby grant permission to licensees under the LGPL to link
> > any code I've contributed to FreeTDS against the OpenSSL library for the
> > purpose of creating redistributable binaries.  In case we don't get the
> > same consent from all other contributors, I'll probably start looking at
> > what would need to be changed to use the GNU TLS library instead.
>
> IANAL! OpenSSL is not GPL compatible, but what about LGPL?  Most of the
> clauses seem to deal with redistribution of openssl, and would affect
> staticly linked versions of freetds I suppose.  I also don't believe we
> fall under "derived works" either, so that knocks out clause 4.  That
> seems to leave clause 3.
>
>  * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this
>  *    software must display the following acknowledgment:
>  *    "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
>  *    for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit. (http://www.openssl.org/)"

And there is the problem, right there.  The "advertising clause" is what
makes the original BSD license incompatible with the GPL, according to
FSF.  If OpenSSL would switch to the "modified" BSD license (which omits
the advertising clause) then it appears that the result would be
compatible with the GPL.

The sticking point will probably be that some of the OpenSSL code is
derived from SSLEAY and the product is released under the conjunction of
OpenSSL's license and SSLEAY's license.  Since EAY now works for a company
that sells competing products, asking him to make changes to his license
could put him in an uncomfortable position.

-- 
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer   mwood AT IUPUI.Edu
MS Windows *is* user-friendly, but only for certain values of "user".