Squid & openssl

[Robert Collins]

W.r.t http://www.squid-cache.org/mail-archive/squid-dev/201206/0075.html

I would like to expand on this - this is based on my reading of the
license terms that are under debate by the Ubuntu tech board now,
*not* on a desire for a particular outcome.

As a Squid upstream I *hate* that Debian and Ubuntu don't ship SSL
enabled binaries. The only issues I see are technical, legacy ones - I
don't perceive a moral issue here given that OpenSSL is free software:
It is very unlike the situation with a proprietary OS, and I wish that
Squid *could* put an exception in place for OpenSSL.

However, we have spotty contact with the union of all developers, and
it would require considerable human bandwidth to get an exception in
place - so far no-one has made the time to really get that happening.

So - it is a violation to ship OpenSSL linked Squid IFF you agree that
OpenSSL isn't a 'system library', and to date I have sided with the
Debian interpretation of that. As a project however, Squid would like
to see SSL enabled binaries shipping by default. I can guarantee that
I wouldn't stand in the way of OpenSSL being determined to be a system
library, though I can't make that statement for the set of all past
contributors to Squid! However, any such postulated contributor that
objects could have stated their grievances with Fedora/RHEL at any
time in the past, so it would be very odd for them to turn up now and
complain specifically to Ubuntu, were Ubuntu to start shipping SSL
enabled binaries.

Finally, it irks me that Fedora and Debian/Ubuntu have different
answers for the 'is OpenSSL a system library' question. It makes it
hard for folk writing software :(.

HTH,
-Rob