[Bug 1175028] Re: Mongodb links GPL code with SSL

[James Page]

I'd like to clarify the process under which I enabled the SSL support in
the MongoDB package; this feels like a suitable place todo that.

SSL support was requested by a number of people in the MongoDB package;
specifically to support certain security related features for juju-core.

My initial stance was that this was not possible due to the know
incompatibility between OpenSSL and GPL licenses - I discussed this with
the Debian maintainer and we agreed; so I approached the copyright
holder (10gen) for clarification on their position as to linking OpenSSL
with MongoDB; their initial response was the they thought this was OK as
OpenSSL is shipped with the distro so this fell under the 'system
libraries' clause in GPL licensing.

I was uncomfortable as this is a grey area for the distro, so I
requested a license exception be documented as part of MongoDB.

10gen clarified their position to me again in a formal letter rather
than a documented License exception; I discussed with an archive admin
and internal Canonical legal counsel and the opinion was that this was
sufficient to enable this feature in Ubuntu.  I agree this should have
been documented in the package; this was my oversight.

At no point did I request a Ubuntu specific license exception.

As commented in #2 I'm working with 10gen to get this documented as a
license exception in the MongoDB package itself as this appears to be
the clearest path to resolving this issue.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1175028

Title:
  Mongodb links GPL code with SSL

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