diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL index afc41fd5..778a6fa3 100644 --- a/INSTALL +++ b/INSTALL @@ -120,20 +120,28 @@ decompression of gzipped files or HTML code rewriting for ELinks-unfriendly websites. - !BEWARE! If you _distribute_ a binary of ELinks with OpenSSL linked to it, -and the OpenSSL library is not part of your base system, you are VIOLATING THE -GPL (although I believe that for this absurd case no ELinks copyright holder -will sue you, and it's not a problem for the OpenSSL people as well, as they -have explicitly told me). So, people who are making ELinks binaries for systems -with no OpenSSL in the base system and who decided to link OpenSSL against the -ELinks binary may wish NOT to publish or distribute such a binary, as it's -breaking GPL 2(b), if they like to have everything legally perfect (like Debian -people ;). As a semi-solution to this for those people, GNUTLS support was -introduced; if you want to distribute ELinks binaries with HTTPS support, -compile ELinks with the --with-gnutls configure option (assuming that you have -GNUTLS 0.5.0 or later [tested with 0.5.4] installed). However, as GNUTLS is not -yet 100% stable and its support in ELinks is not so well tested yet, it's -recommended for users to give a strong preference to OpenSSL whenever possible. + !BEWARE! If you _distribute_ an ELinks executable linked with OpenSSL and +the OpenSSL library is not part of your base system, you are VIOLATING THE GPL. +I honestly believe that for this absurd case no ELinks copyright holder will +sue you, and it's not a problem for the OpenSSL people as well, as they have +explicitly told me, but you might stay on the safe side. + + So, people who are making ELinks binaries for systems with no OpenSSL in the +base system and who decided to link OpenSSL against the ELinks binary may wish +NOT to publish or distribute such an executable, as it's breaking GPL 2(b), if +they like to have everything legally perfect (like the Debian people ;-). + + As a semi-solution to this problem, GNUTLS support was introduced; if you want +to distribute ELinks executables with HTTPS support, compile ELinks with the +--with-gnutls configure option (assuming that you have GNUTLS 1.2.0 installed; +we can't say about later versions since GNUTLS people seem to have strange taste +wrt. backwards compatibility). + + HOWEVER, beware that GNUTLS support in ELinks is not so well tested as +OpenSSL, and shall be probably still considered experimental. Therfore, it's +recommended to the users to give OpenSSL strong preference whenever possible. +(Just to show the GNU ideologists how silly can they sometimes be, if not +anything else. ;-) ##########