Re: [libmicrohttpd] Anyone wants openssl support in libmicrohttpd?

[Christian Grothoff]

Hi!

My understanding is that this is not entirely accurate. If OpenSSL is
part of the operating system, then there is no problem:

https://people.gnome.org/~markmc/openssl-and-the-gpl.html
https://www.openssl.org/docs/faq.html#LEGAL2

And no, I don't expect to change the license to spread OpenSSL instead
of GnuTLS to W32. That beast ought to be contained, not spread ;-).

Happy hacking!

Christian

On 11/04/2015 07:00 PM, Hein-Pieter van Braam wrote:
> I think it may be helpful to add an exception to the LGPLv2.1+ license
> of microhttpd if this becomes a standard part of microhttpd. While the
> LGPL is compatible with the OpenSSL licenses the GPL is not. As per
> section 3 of the LGPLv2.1+ it is allowed to change the license of a
> LGPL package to the GPL. Without the exception for OpenSSL more care
> needs to be taken by a user that does that, and they may inadvertently
> create a non-distributeable program.
> 
> It may also be that a GPL program linked against an LGPL library needs
> to 'relicense' the LGPL library to the GPL 'automatically' At least
> that is what this footnote seems to suggest: https://www.gnu.org/licens
> es/gpl-faq.html#compat-matrix-footnote-7 If that interpretation is
> correct than without the OpenSSL exception a GPL program can't link to
> an microhttpd linked against OpenSSL at all because the to-GPL-
> converted microhttpd won't have the OpenSSL exception in it, even if
> the GPL program that links to microhttpd does.
> 
> I hope this rambling makes some sense :P
> 
> - Hein-Pieter van Braam