+ o The Makefile hierarchy and build mechanism is still not a round thing:
+
+ 1. The config vs. Configure scripts
+ It's the same nasty situation as for Apache with APACI vs.
+ src/Configure. It confuses.
+ Suggestion: Merge Configure and config into a single configure
+ script with a Autoconf style interface ;-) and remove
+ Configure and config. Or even let us use GNU Autoconf
+ itself. Then we can avoid a lot of those platform checks
+ which are currently in Configure.
+
+ 2. The massive symlinking of Makefile.ssl -> Makefile:
+ First the `make -f Makefile.ssl links' command is nasty, second the
+ whole process is slow and third it seems to be done without real
+ need. And forth, the dependecies are currently missing. And fifth,
+ it's complicated to always go to the top-level in order to get the
+ local variables overriden.
+ Suggestion: Rename Makefile.ssl to Makefile.in, add
+ dependencies to Makefile.in and change the build process
+ to _generate_ Makefile out of Makefile.in by
+ substituting variables like CC, etc. This solves the
+ above problems.
+
+ 3. The xxx.org -> xxx.h generation:
+ It's not obvious for which file xxx.org is the source.
+ Suggestion: Rename xxx.org to xxx.h.in (Autoconf style), this way
+ one sees that xxx.h.in is the input for xxx.h
+
+ o The installation under "make install" produces a very
+ installation layout: $prefix/certs and $prefix/private dirs. That's
+ not nice. Ralf suggests to move the two certs and private dirs either
+ to $prefix/etc/, $prefix/lib/ or $prefix/share. Alternatively
+ we could also not install the certs at all.
+
+ Status: Ralf +1 for both not installing the certs at all and
+ moving it to $prefix/etc/. +0 for $prefix/lib/
+ and $prefix/share.
+ Paul: why is it not nice?
+ Ralf: because it messes up the install dir when
+ $prefix is not a dedicated area like /usr/local/ssl.
+ When we move them to a standard subdir like
+ etc/ lib/ or share/ we don't mess up things
+ when $prefix is /usr or /usr/local, etc.
+ Additionally it makes package vendors life
+ easier....
+
+ o Support for Shared Libraries has to be added at least
+ for the major Unix platforms. The details we can rip from the stuff
+ Ralf has done for the Apache src/Configure script. Ben wants the
+ solution to be really simple.
+
+ Status: Ralf will look how we can easily incorporate the
+ compiler PIC and linker DSO flags from Apache
+ into the OpenSSL Configure script.
+
+ o The perl/ stuff needs a major overhaul. Currently it's
+ totally obsolete. Either we clean it up and enhance it to be up-to-date
+ with the C code or we also could replace it with the really nice
+ Net::SSLeay package we can find under
+ http://www.neuronio.pt/SSLeay.pm.html. Ralf uses this package for a
+ longer time and it works fine and is a nice Perl module. Best would be
+ to convince the author to work for the OpenSSL project and create a
+ Net::OpenSSL or Crypt::OpenSSL package out of it and maintains it for
+ us.
+
+ Status: Ralf thinks we should both contact the author of Net::SSLeay
+ and look how much effort it is to bring Eric's perl/ stuff up
+ to date.
+ Paul +1
+
+ o Ralf has ported Stephen's pkcs12 program to OpenSSL (the
+ ASN.1 stuff Eric recently changed :-( ), but needs some help from
+ Stephen at two source locations. Stephen itself also has ported his
+ internal pkcs12 0.53 version to OpenSSL, but thinks we still shouldn't
+ incorporate it into OpenSSL because it needs more cleanups. Ralf still
+ thinks pkcs12 should be incorporated better now than later because it's
+ nasty to not have it in the core - one always has to install it
+ manually and a lot of people use it. So, should we incorporate it?
+ BTW, we have to be carefully because of the pkcs12 license: There are
+ some things which don't match the OpenSSL license, so Stephen has to
+ change it for us when we want to incorporate the code.
+
+ Status: Ralf +1, Stephen -0