Hi brian,
On Sat, Feb 01, 2025 at 11:09:09PM +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:
Git is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2.
Included in Git is /usr/lib/git-core/git-remote-http, which is the
backend which uses libcurl to perform HTTP-based operations.
Unfortunately, that binary appears to be linked against OpenSSL,
probably because OpenLDAP, on which libcurl depends, is linked against OpenSSL.
OpenSSL is under the Apache License 2.0, which is, despite everyone's
best intentions, not actually compatible with the GNU General Public
License version 2, and thus the Git binary is not actually
distributable.
Note that Debian cannot take advantage of the system library exception,
the text of which is as follows:
However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not
include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or
binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on)
of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that
component itself accompanies the executable.
Since Debian distributes OpenSSL on the same mirror network and
installation media as Git, so OpenSSL accompanies the executable. For instance, the current debian-testing-amd64-DVD-1 contains both git and libssl3t64. This is, as I understand it, consistent with Debian's
historical position.
I would like to better understand your position. You appear to be
singling out OpenSSL here, but I fail to see how the reasoning would be different for GCC. GCC is distributed under GPL-3+. I know that libgcc
has a linking exception arguing that its GPL-3+ does not infect other
code linked with libgcc. We also know that GPL-2-only and GPL-3+ are incompatible. That would appear to be the case here. According to your argument, the system library exception would not be applicable as it is
also included in the image mentioned.
Do you also ask us to stop linking git with libgcc?
If not, could you explain how libgcc is different from OpenSSL?
Thanks for your clarification
Helmut
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