Re: relicense libtasn1 to LGPLv3+

[Simon Josefsson]

Andreas Metzler <address@hidden> writes:

> On 2011-12-06 Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Andreas Metzler <address@hidden> writes:
>>> On 2011-12-06 Simon Josefsson <address@hidden> wrote:
>>>> We are considering re-licensing Libtasn1 to LGPLv3+ and I wanted to hear
>>>> if there are any strong reasons against that.
>>> [...]
>
>>> I am not sure this counts as a strong reason, but I think GnuTLS using
>>> GPLv2-only code (cups) would need to drop TLS support. Even after
>>> GnuTLS switched to 3.0 they could continue using the legacy (but still
>>> supported) gnutls 2.x series.
>
>> Eventually the 2.x series will not be supported though, what will happen
>> then?
>
> No idea.
>
>> Anyway, just as cups could use old GnuTLS, they could use old Libtasn1,
>> couldn't they?
>
> Not in distributions. e.g. in Debian the only straigtforward way I can
> think of would be to not upload the relicensed tasn.  gnutls v2 and v3
> (runtime) are co-installable (and co-packagable) since they use
> different sonames.[1] OTOH I do not expect major code changes requiring a
> soname bump in tasn. (I am not advocating a soname bump just for license
> changes . ;-)

Libtasn1 1.x is still supported.  But it has the same soname...

Actually, bumping soname might be nice to finally get rid of the
ASN1_DISABLE_DEPRECATED stuff...

>> I don't see a simple solution for CUPS given that GnuTLS is LGPLv3+
>> after we noticed that GMP is LGPLv3+.  Both libraries could be
>> relicensed as dual-LGPLv3+|GPLv2+ though, but it requires some
>> coordination and effort from somebody interested.
>
> I saw you trying to start a discussion in 
> http://gmplib.org/list-archives/gmp-bugs/2011-February/002178.html
> without receiving any responses (on list) and wrote it off. You seem
> to have had a little bit more luck in
> http://gmplib.org/list-archives/gmp-devel/2011-May/001952.html
> but the thread also simply stopped.

Yeah, I don't see this as impossible, it just requires that someone
pursues this with more effort.

> [1] I do not think it is terribly wonderful to ship both versions but
> we are required to, since simply switching to v3 in one step would
> have broken a huge number of packages.

Because of ABI changes or license?

/Simon