GnuPG code in Mozilla: GPL issues?

[Adam Lock]

Werner Koch wrote:

> On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Anthony Clark wrote:
>
> > I recently posted to netscape.public.mozilla.crypto about OpenPGP support in
> > the Mozilla mail/news components.  I wanted to reuse code from gnupg (Yes, I
> > am lazy!), but I was warned of probable GPL violations if I did this.
>
> Yes, the MPL and the GPL are not compatible.  But you don't have to
> link them together.  Just use fork/exec to run gpg - this is perfectly
> legal.  There is also a special interface to control gpg from another
> program (see tools/shmtest.c).   A more convenient way would be to use
> the PGG wrapper library,  this is also GPLed but maybe we can
> convinmce Michael to make an exception for MPL.  I am very interested
> to make Mozilla (or even Netscape) OpenPGP aware.
>
>    Werner

A couple of random thoughts:

James Clark distributes expat under the MPL by default, but he allows distribution
under the GPL in special circumstances (e.g. to let expat ship with GPL software).
Couldn't GnuPG do the reverse?

Also, what are the chances that core GPG functionality will become a runtime
library? If that happened, then presumably the LGPL (which most libraries use)
would mean that Mozilla could link to it with no problems.

--
Adam Lock