[cas-dev] Licenses incompatibilities betw mod_auth_cas and OpenSSL ?

[Michele Baldessari]

Hi Matt et all,

On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 16:24 +0200, Olivier Berger wrote:
> Le jeudi 07 août 2008 à 07:10 -0700, Patrick Berry a écrit :
> > Debian includes openssl in utils.  I'm not familiar with the conflict
> > between GPL and OpenSSL, but it they include it, I'm thinking it would
> > be okay to link against it.
> > 
> 
> The problem is not to link against it in general, but to link a *GPL
> program* against it.
> 
> That's the case for mod-auth_cas, which is GPL V3.
> 
> More details about the incompatibilities here :
> http://www.gnome.org/~markmc/openssl-and-the-gpl.html
> 
> So yes, openssl is in Debian, so one may build mod-auth_cas on his/her
> machine, but redistribution of a package may not be possible by
> Debian :(

in order to redistribute a binary GPL package which links to OpenSSL you
have to add an exemption like the following [1]:
"""
  In addition, as a special exception, the copyright holders give
  permission to link the code of portions of this program with the
  OpenSSL library under certain conditions as described in each
  individual source file, and distribute linked combinations
  including the two.
  You must obey the GNU General Public License in all respects
  for all of the code used other than OpenSSL.  If you modify
  file(s) with this exception, you may extend this exception to your
  version of the file(s), but you are not obligated to do so.  If you
  do not wish to do so, delete this exception statement from your
  version.  If you delete this exception statement from all source
  files in the program, then also delete it here.
"""

This unless you're willing (and have the right) to switch to a license
that isn't conflicting with OpenSSL's.

hth,
Michele

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00595.html

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://tp.its.yale.edu/pipermail/cas-dev/attachments/20080807/e214339a/attachment.bin