[openssl-dev] License change agreement

[Quanah Gibson-Mount]

--On Friday, March 24, 2017 2:17 PM +0000 "Salz, Rich" <rsalz at akamai.com> 
wrote:

>> As was noted back when this was brought up in 2015, there are other,
>> better, licenses than the APLv2 which are also GPLv2 compatible.  The
>> MPLv2 being an example of such a license.  There is also BSD, MIT/X11,
>> etc.  The GPLv2 incompatibility of OpenSSL is a major problem.
>
> Better in one dimension, not in the multiple dimensions that we are
> concerned about.  For example, one of the major things that is an issue
> for GPLv2 is the patent protection.  Patent protection is important to
> us.  At least now we're compatible with GPL3, which is hopefully seen as
> a major step forward.
>
> Yes, it is too bad we can't please all communities right now.

Yes, you brought patent protection in 2015, and in 2015, I pointed out that 
the MPLv2 also has patent protections, but here's a refresher:

<http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences#Apache_License_2.0>
<http://en.swpat.org/wiki/MPL_and_patents>

The MPLv2 of course has the advantage of being compatible with both the 
GPLv2 and the GPLv3, etc.  I.e., it has much broader compatibility than the 
APLv2.

In 2 years time, I've yet to see one valid argument to using the APLv2 vs 
the MPLv2 originate from the OpenSSL team.

--Quanah

--

Quanah Gibson-Mount
Product Architect
Symas Corporation
Packaged, certified, and supported LDAP solutions powered by OpenLDAP:
<http://www.symas.com>