Better proxy support available via libcurl?

Werner Koch wk at gnupg.org
Thu Aug 3 11:11:44 CEST 2006


On Wed,  2 Aug 2006 21:18, David Shaw said:

> A thought: why not just put an exception in for OpenSSL?  That's what
> Wget did, and it's a Gnu project as well:

I don't like these exceptions for practical reasons.  Take Sylpheed as
an example.  There the OpenSSL exception is also stated.  However
there are a couple of problems:

* It has been added without asking all contributors.  For example I
  have never been asked despite that I did quite some work on
  Sylpheed.

* Sylpheed links to a couple of libraries which are (or used to be)
  GPL.  Thus they would have needed to negotiate with all authors to
  agree on this exception.  One GPL part not coming with this
  exception renders the whole exception pointless.

* To make real use of this exception most of the GPL software would
  end up with this exception.  Hmmm, it is called an exception for a
  reason.

The forthcoming GPLv3 will make these things easier but agreement of
all authors will still be required.

> It seems significantly easier than forcing multiple versions of
> libcurl or refusing to build with OpenSSL, or the like.

Thinks would be far easier if the OpenSSL folks had not decided to
base their work on ssleay.  ssleay's authors still refuse to change
the licensing terms in favor of the modern BSD license.  But well, it
is mood to discuss this point now.

BTW, I don't understand why everyone insists on OpenSSL instead of
thinking of other libs.  cryptlib seems to be a much more reliable
implementaion than what most people are using these days.


Shalom-Salam,

   Werner





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