From: Austin Ziegler Date: 2010-03-18T23:31:21+09:00 Subject: Re: Recommended way to install Rubygems On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 10:21 AM, Lucas Nussbaum wrote: > OpenSSL doesn't have a lot of fans, because of its licence that prevents > it from being linked to GPL software. Yes, it could be possible to ship > openssl.so and readline.so in the same package, but then it would be > harder to argue that Debian does enough to protect the linking of > readline (GPLv2) with openssl. The situation would be much simpler if > Ruby switched to GNU TLS, for example. Your first sentence is incorrect; OpenSSL is both better known and more widely used in the real world than GNU TLS is likely to ever be. GNU TLS is preferred by people who have subscribed to the GNU philosophy, which doesn't include everyone in the Ruby world, and those of us who prefer OpenSSL see GNU TLS as a zany outlier created by people who have nothing better to do with their time than to worry about the attribution clause (I believe that's the part that makes GNU software incompatible with OpenSSL licensing, since GNU believes that attribution isn't necessary). That said, if someone were to make an SSL/TLS layer for Ruby that could reasonably replace the OpenSSL namespace and that both "require 'openssl'" and "require 'gnutls'" would satisfy, then I think we'd see traction. Since this is apparently a problem for people who prefer GNU TLS, I suggest that it is in their interest to do so. -austin -- Austin Ziegler • halostatue@gmail.com • austin@halostatue.ca http://www.halostatue.ca/ • http://twitter.com/halostatue