[UA-discuss] Public domain/MIT licensed IDN library for C

[Dmitry Belyavsky]

There is PUNYCODE-related code in RFC 3492 with a very permissive license.
But I'm afraid it needs to be updated to match IDNA2008.

On Tue, Jul 2, 2019 at 6:51 AM Michael Casadevall <michael at casadevall.pro>
wrote:

> Short version: Is anyone aware of an implementation of IDNA2008 that is
> in the public domain or MIT/BSD licensed?
>
> Long version: During a discussion with Paul Hoffman, we were talking
> about the state of IDN support in at a core programming language level,
> and my efforts to write a yellow paper showing the full effort required
> to implement support for IDNs/EAIs we talked about the licensing of
> libidn2. Specifically, libidn2 is dual-licensed under the GPLv2/LGPLv3.
> This is rather problematic for implementing IDN support in many
> applications coded in C/C++.
>
> GPLv2 requires that an application that uses libidn be free and open
> source and compatible the GPLv2 licensing terms which is impossible for
> any propitiatory software package, or those under a free software but
> non-GPL compatible license such as the CDDL.
>
> LGPLv3 in theory solves this problem, but adds even more complications.
> LGPL allows libidn2 to linked to proprietary software but only in the
> form of a shared library (dll or so) file. However, LGPLv3 requires
> patent grants be given to any user of said library (GPLv3 section 11).
> This clause adds an extremely high barrier to entry in corporate
> environment which involves legal questions and may not be surmountable.
>
> As we want IDN support to go as far as wide as possible, the best way to
> accomplish that is an IDNA2008 implementation that is entirely
> non-embured, either under the MIT license, another weak copyleft
> license, or ideally in the public domain or CC-0 licenses. I searched
> around and came up empty but I'm hoping the list can point me in the
> right direction.
> Michael
>
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-- 
SY, Dmitry Belyavsky
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