OpenPGP Card

['Lionel Elie Mamane']

On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 04:26:05PM +0200, Zeljko Vrba wrote:

>> PKCS#11 IS a library API. But really, how is API different from a
>> protocol? Is the only difference linking in the same address space?

> BTW, I can imagine writing a version of ld.so (BSD licensed!) that
> will execute different shared libraries as separate processes,

Please do so. I'm curious how you will handle:

 1) Pointers being passed

    By copying the whole address space back and forth at each call and
    return? "Morally" that's not running in separate address spaces!

 2) A library that calls exec() or fork() or setuid() such a
    "process state changing" syscall.


I don't think you can keep the semantics of all libraries in this
way.

> and will NOT link them in the same address space with the
> application in question (i.e. GnuPG).

> So the "procedure call" will call to a stub in the BSD licensed
> ld.so which will just "pass a message" to the real shared library
> and return a result code to the application.

> Thing like this would forever end this GPL madness about what is
> "derivative work".

It would certainly be a fun legal challenge. I don't believe however,
you would win it. But I'm not a lawyer, he.

By all means, please follow through on this plan. It will be very fun
to watch!

-- 
Lionel