OpenSSL Receives FIPS 140-2 Validation

Argon writes "Close on heals of NewsForge reporting about Government Agency dragging its heels on OpenSSL validation comes the news that OpenSSL receives FIPS Certification. More details are available at the Open Source Institute site which has been driving the effort to get OpenSSL certified. FIPS 140-2 certification allows software using the certified version of OpenSSL to get into various Government departments previously not possible, thus increasing penetration of Free Software in Government."

Comments

Re:So will this end gnutls ?

[juergen]

It is not "just because". Appearantly some people find the license annoying (scroll up slightly for a proof).

You yourself listed beeing not free (enough) as one of the reasons you do not claim nonsense ...

I personally don't mind there beeing 2 projects, if any one dies we still have the other one.

Re:So will this end gnutls ?

[micheas]

However I sometimes don't understand why sometimes people are very desperate to re-invent the wheel "just because".

Think of it as the computer equivilent to a kit car. Impractical and done mainly for the benifit of the person doing it. Every once in a while someone creating a one off car comes up with something really innovative, but most of the time it is just a single persons hobby that no one really cares about.

With the nominal distribution and reproduction cost of software however, each creation has a remote chance of being a market leader.

Observers seem get caught up on market share and conservation on talent, when a lot of computer work is the scale of a really impressive hobby. That is not to say that people do not create software for other reasons. That is obviously false, but writing a *n*x clone from scratch when BSD already existed to get to learn about the 80386 was a waste of time if one only looks at efficiency of resources, but that was not the goal. The goal was to learn about the 80386, Linux having a sizable market share was an unintended consequence that did not factor in its origination.

(I hope this is not way to pedantic, but the we shouldn't waste resources statements seem to get passed around as truth with out any discussion.)

non-Viral == Annoying???

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

OpenSSL is one of those cool projects that would be so much cooler if it weren't for the stupid license that makes it a PITA to actually employ in a product. OpenSSL essentially uses the BSD license w/attribution, which makes it difficult to use with GPLd projects, unless you use the version provided by your distro -- which isn't always desireable.

Okay, maybe this is a question of semantics, but since when did a non-viral open source license qualify as "annoying"?

Re:Annoying license

[nacturation]

You have such a problem giving credit to the people whose work you use? You don't even need to release source if you don't want. Just using it and saying thanks in your documentation and/or credits is all that's required.