Yes but neither mbed TLS nor OpenSSL is a system library on Windows
or macOS. And even mbed TLS is sketchy as many distributions do not
have in their base system. So just assume, at least for the sake of
argument that they are not. In that case I think we need this
exception. So I am asking if you are willing to allow this exception
to the license even though you think it is unnecessary to make the
people that think that it is needed happy?
In that case your proposed exception doesn't work. You've modelled it
on the OpenSSL exception which was designed to cover the use case where
OpenSSL *is* a system library (thus covered by the system library
exception) but imposes incompatible additional restrictions on whole
binary, specifically the GPLv2 pieces.
To make this work assuming the crypto library isn't a system one, you
need an exception to the section 2 requirement to ship the whole under
GPLv2 ... or a simple declaration that you think openssl and mbedtls
are system libraries for the purposes of OpenVPN, so the system library
exception applies to them regardless of how they are shipped.
The origin of the existing exception is the Debian project (or at least
has been used a lot in relationship with the project). Until very
recently Debian did NOT consider the OpenSSL library to be a system
library, so they asked GPLv2 projects to add this clause to allow
linking with the OpenSSL library. So that makes me believe that this
clause is fit for the purpose that we are using it for.
See as an example here
https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/05/msg00595.html
The change that Debian considers the OpenSSL library a system library in
Debian is from 2020:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2020/10/msg00168.html
http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-ftp/2020/debian-ftp.2020-03-13-20.02.html
So I trust that the exception does indeed allow for linking against
OpenSSL as a non-system library as otherwise adding this exception would
have made no sense in the context that it was used.
Arne
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