Re: configure fails if GnuTLS not present

On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 08:28, Philip S Tellis wrote:
> Sometime Today, Rodney Dawes assembled some asciibets to say:
> 
> > You probably just want to do AC_MSG_RESULT([no]) instead of spitting
> 
> that's already done.
> 
> > > Also, why not use openssl?  Ayttm currently works with openssl instead 
> > > of gnutls - we could pick whichever exists.
> > 
> > OpenSSL has a crappy API, and is incompatible with the GPL. As far as I
> > can tell, the GnuTLS API is much better. GnuTLS and related libraries,
> 
> all the same, I have openssl and I don't have gnuTLS - how many "normal 
> users" would care?  I think one should use whichever is available.

Normal users aren't meant to care. We are. That is why we have to deal
with licensing issues and crappy APIs. Users don't have to defend the
software we right, in courts of law. They don't have to maintain support
for all the crappy APIs just to make users happy. If everyone doesn't
ship gnutls right now, they will be soon enough, so it is a non-issue.
My /professional/ recommendation is to stick with gnutls. The
maintanence costs for keeping up with security issues in multiple SSL
libraries is not worth it, when that time could be spent doing other
things, like adding support for the entire protocol, or integrating
various pieces so that things just work. Doing those, will make users
much happier than whether or not they have to install gnutls instead
of openssl. I mean, how many "Normal users" are going to be using the
eb-lite stuff in the next few months anyway? Probably nowhere near
enough to matter, if any. AFAICT, the only people using eb-lite right
now, are the people hacking on it, in some form or another.

-- dobey