----- Original Message ----- From: "David Schwartz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <openssl-users@openssl.org> Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 2:17 PM Subject: RE: license question
> > > What is actually going on when the end-user runs OpenSSL and it > > dynamically links in your restricted library, or the end user compiles > > the unrestricted OpenSSL into your restricted library, is that they > > are committing a license violation of the OpenSSL license when > > they start using the resultant unified whole, because your license > > is going to require them to accept your license terms for the result of > > of whatever they link into. This is a violation of the OpenSSL terms > > on changing the OpenSSL license. > > I wholeheartedly disagree. You cannot violate the OpenSSL license by using > OpenSSL. > > The end user is not creating a derivative work because he is not creating a > work at all. For copyright purposes, you only create a work when you add > creative input. Compiling and linking is not a creative process. > This is licensing terms we are talking about here, not copyright terms, which are an entirely separate and different thing. >From the license: "...Redistribution AND USE in source..." "This LIBRARY is free for commercial and non-commercial USE as long as the following conditions..." When you link in your own code, it becomes part of the library, thus part of OpenSSL. If you don't apply all the license terms to your code, when you are licensing it to yourself to use for yourself, you are violating the license. Of course, nobody cares because your not redistributing it. There are many funny licensing clauses that appear nonsensical to the layman but are perfectly logical. The SSLeay and OpenSSL license is an extremely sloppy and poorly defined document because the people who wrote it were under the misguided assumption that good legal documentation is simple. This is an assumption that is shared by much of the general public, of course, because most people are stupid and want to believe that the rest of the world is comprised of simpletons, it makes them feel better. In reality, good, defendable legal documentation is very explicit and spells everything out, that is why it's so long, it does not make a bunch of assumptions. > IANAL, this is not legal advice. > We have a saying here about that: "No shit, sherlock" Continuing to disclaim your own advice is really rediculous. We all know that the respondents to this thread, including myself, are not lawyers and nobody with brains is going to take postings off a mailing list as legal advice. I also have some distressing news for you as well - if you were to consult a dozen lawyers about this topic, you would get a dozen different interpretations. Legal advice, paid or otherwise, ain't worth shit until a Judge in a courtroom agrees with it, I fail to see why your getting so excited about advice on a license being "not legal" Ted ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List openssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
