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sepinf-inc / IPED

IPED Digital Forensic Tool. It is an open source software that can be used to process and analyze digital evidence, often seized at crime scenes by law enforcement or in a corporate investigation by private examiners.
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Make Sleuthkit dependency a plugin module, so we can be GNU GPLv3 fully compatible again #523

Open lfcnassif opened 3 years ago

lfcnassif commented 3 years ago

Years ago we added a linking exception to Sleuthkit because its license is most Common Public License/IBM Public License, and those are incompatible with GNU GPL v3, see "Additional permissions under GNU GPL version 3 section 7" in IPED license. We can make an API library dual licensed (for example CPL and GPL, or single licensed as Apache) for accessing image contents, to be used by IPED. And an implementation library using sleuthkit, dependent only on the new API library, to be a service provider to be loaded at runtime if found.

As we added an exception to sleuthkit and became not fully GPL compatible, we also added an exception to closed source plugins to receive help from the private sector if they want, but that is not needed, the approach above could be used to make closed source plugins for GPL programs.

So, changing sleuthkit to be a plugin like above and reverting IPED license changes (if all devs agree of course), we can use any GPL library as dependency again without asking for a specific permission.

fmpfeifer commented 3 years ago

That's a great idea! Being able to use any GPL library will be very helpful.