xmlsec and libxmlsec for Debian ------------------------------- The upstream documentation is included with the libxmlsec1-dev package and located at /usr/share/doc/libxmlsec1-dev. When developing with the xmlsec library, you have a choice of openssl, gnutls, or nss crypto engines. By using "pkg-config xmlsec1-<engine>" or "xmlsec1-config --crypto=<engine>", you can get the necessary compiler command-line switches for enabling a certain engine. If you want to license your application that uses the xmlsec library under the GNU GPL, or want your library that uses the xmlsec library to be GPL- compatible, I suggest using the gnutls engine. Use of the nss crypto engine may also be compatible with the GPL, but see bugs #207024 and #207026. Regarding openssl, there is a bit of controversy about whether it can be considered part of the OS and therefore make use of a loophole in the GPL. (See the xmlsec FAQ in the documentation.) More specifically, debian-legal takes a hard line and does not allow GPL'd packages that link to openssl to exist in main. In the future, support for PGP key types may be added, which would become another reason to go with the gnutls engine. Note that the library has a dynamic crypto engine loading feature, but I have not yet enabled it. Note that a number of the examples included with the -dev package will not compile successfuly under the gnutls engine (due to lack of features compared to openssl), and will fail under both the gnutls and nss engines (due to lack of pem file support, etc.). Upstream has promised that they will increment the number in the library name name (for example, xmlsec1 -> xmlsec2) whenever a binary incompatibility is introduced, and that it will always match the soname number. For this reason I chose to omit the soname number from package names. -- John V. Belmonte <jbelmonte@debian.org>