FreeRadius licensing and distribution

[Frank Cusack]

On February 23, 2007 9:46:21 AM +0100 Alan DeKok 
<aland at deployingradius.com> wrote:
> devquest at hushmail.com wrote:
>> (*) Can this be legally done?
>
>   There are restrictions, but yes.  The module MUST be licensed under
> the GPL, as it is a derivative work of FreeRADIUS.  At that point, you
> might as well submit the module to us for inclusion in the main release.

Is a FR module a derivative work or just a "user" of FR in the sense
that FR is a framework for such modules?

>> (*) If the above rlm_ module depends on some external SDKs
>> (unrelated to FreeRadius) and its source is contributed to
>> FreeRadius, does the source to the SDK need to be contributed as
>> well?
>
>   Not necessarily.  For example, the FreeRADIUS modules depend on libc,
> which is proprietary in many OS's.  If the libraries needed by a module
> are normally part of the OS, then the source does not have to be
> contributed back.  If, however, the libraries are not part of the OS,
> but are part of the application you're selling along with FreeRADIUS,
> then you have a choice:
>
>   a) distribute the source to the libraries, too.  Likely under the GPL
>   b) do not distribute FreeRADIUS or the module you're adding.

c) be sole copyright holder of the new module and don't worry about
the libraries.

FR links to openssl, I don't hear anyone complaining.

-frank