Re: cvs commit: squid3 configure.in

On Mon, 2007-09-24 at 09:49 -0600, Alex Rousskov wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-09-19 at 15:41 +1200, Amos Jeffries wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2007-09-07 at 09:43 +0800, Adrian Chadd wrote:
> > >
> > > That said, doing dynamic loading has GPL implications that I'm not
> > > currently comfortable with.
> > >
> >
> > What would those be?
>
> The implications range from the "Module is a part of the GPL program
> and, hence, must be GPLed!" FSF point of view to "there are no
> implications except wasting time on discussing FSF FUD!" point of view.
>
> Let's not waste our time talking about this here: We would not reach a
> conclusion, and even if we do, it would not matter. There is an OSI
> mailing list for such discussions...

This is the very mechanical view, and I agree - its well covered
elsewhere and not something to spend time on.

For me the interesting thing, and the important one, is what we would
like to permit and achieve with loadable modules, with regards non open
source extensions. The licence mechanics referred to above kindof
conflate what the licence permits/allows with the precanned FSF policy.

I think my key concerns at the moment are two-fold:
 - Its not clear to folk who current ship GPL-compatible proprietary
squid patches what a loadable module system will permit, because GPL
interpretation is (as you note above) neither trivially obvious nor
(AFAIK) tested in court. We can probably grant an exemption or addendum
to make what we mean clear. (The sorts of proprietary things I am
thinking of currently ship as source patches, which the user applies to
squid, because they cannot ship squid binaries..)
 - We haven't discussed whether we want to make life easier for
proprietary extensions (e.g. allow them to ship binary modules rather
than source packages), keep the status quo, or even try to put more
leverage towards such extensions being opened.

So the former is about clear communication, and the latter is about
intent, and probably will be a fraught discussion.

-Rob

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