[Opendnssec-develop] pkcs11.h license

[Roland van Rijswijk]

Hi Jakob,

Jakob Schlyter wrote:
> On 27 jan 2009, at 09.14, Roland van Rijswijk wrote:
> 
>> Did this person motivate why the PKCS #11 headers aren't GPL compatible?
>> Because I've done some searching and had a good look at the licensing
>> and I don't think this is the case. There are PKCS #11 _modules_ that
>> are not GPL compatible (a lot of information can be found on this), but
>> the PKCS #11 headers themselves aren't necessarily GPL incompatible.
> 
> nope.

As the oracle said: beware of Greeks bearing gifts :-)

Seriously though, we should be wary of these kinds of remarks. Although
every outside package that is used should be vetted by taking a good
look at the license this shouldn't be overdone; if there are good
reasons why something that isn't GPL compatible need to be used then so
be it -- I'm very much of the opinion that one should use 'the right
tool for the right job'. As long as it doesn't violate OpenDNSSEC's
license (BSD, right?). Having said that, some care should be taken to
try and stay GPL compatible if possible, but in my opinion, this should
not be the holy grail.

>> I would advise against using third party PKCS #11 headers simply for
>> this reason, and it is debatable whether typing out the header file
>> yourself is not a violation of RSA's license.
> 
> I agree, we should - if possible - be independent of other license other
> than a pure BSD license.

I think we agree. The RSA license is very BSD-ish (you can use it, just
mention where you got it).

Cheers,

Roland.

-- 

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