Re: did libselinux grow a new build dependency? (openssl-devel: openssl.h)

[Jason Zaman <jason@perfinion.com>]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 09:56:57AM -0400, Joshua Brindle wrote:
> Stephen Smalley wrote:
> > On 10/20/2015 09:42 AM, Joshua Brindle wrote:
> >> Stephen Smalley wrote:
> >> <snip>
> >>>
> >>> Wondering if dependency on openssl might be a license issue for Debian
> >>> or others. Apparently openssl license is considered GPL-incompatible [1]
> >>> [2], and obviously libselinux is linked by a variety of GPL-licensed
> >>> programs. Fedora seems to view this as falling under the system library
> >>> exception [3] but not clear that other distributions would view it that
> >>> way. On the other hand, using gnutls would be subject to the reverse
> >>> problem; it would make libselinux depend on a LGPL library, and that
> >>> could create issues for non-GPL programs that statically link
> >>> libselinux. We might need to revert this change and revisit how to solve
> >>> this in a manner that avoids such issues.
> >>
> >> LGPL explicitly allows non-GPL programs to link against an LGPL licensed
> >> library without tainting the non-GPL program, which is the whole point
> >> of the LGPL. Is there some other issue with static linking or something?
> >
> > Yes, that's the concern.
> 
> So, not static linking but a fully static binary that would pull gnutls 
> into the binary?
> 
> What static binaries exist like that? It is not a great idea to carry 
> around system level libraries statically.

>From a quick look through Gentoo, we have a USE-flag to build busybox
and LVM and a few other core tools statically which requres libselinux.a
too.

-- Jason