Pádraig Brady writes: > BTW openssl.org says it's OK to use these interfaces from GPL software > due to the system lib exception: > http://www.openssl.org/support/faq.html#LEGAL2
AFAIK that's legally irrelevant.[1] The FSF (as copyright holder in the GPL itself!) can comment on the intended meaning of terms such as "system libs" in the license, as can the licensor (copyright holder) of a *specific* GPLed software that might be linked with OpenSSL (although they might need to make an explicit exception that would apply only to that software, see below). A third party who distributes GPLed software linked with OpenSSL would have to be backed by a court if the copyright holder disagreed. And IMHO openssl.org's opinion would probably be admitted only as "amicus", and only given attention if their lawyer were really famous in the field. Cf. Linus's famous "interpretation" of the GPL as allowing non-free drivers to be loaded by the kernel. Only Linus could do that; not the driver vendors, not third parties like distros. And in the end, the FSF's opinion overruled that "interpretation", and Linus was forced to make the exception explicit (in the same way that Bison's parser skeleton code gets an explicit and limited exception). Footnotes: [1] In the U.S., and the usual IANAL TINLA caveats apply.
