What This Is
============

This is a fork of [OpenSSL](https://www.openssl.org) to enable QUIC. In addition
to the website, the official source distribution is at
<https://github.com/openssl/openssl>. The OpenSSL `README` can be found at
[README-OpenSSL.md](https://github.com/quictls/openssl/blob/openssl-3.1.2%2Bquic/README-OpenSSL.md)

This fork adds APIs that can be used by QUIC implementations for connection
handshakes. Quoting the IETF Working group
[charter](https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/quic/about/), QUIC is a "UDP-based,
stream-multiplexing, encrypted transport protocol." If you don't need QUIC, you
should use the official OpenSSL distributions.

The APIs here are used by Microsoft's
[MsQuic](https://github.com/microsoft/msquic) and Google's
[Chromium QUIC](https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/net/quic/)

We are not in competition with OpenSSL project. We informed them of
our plans to fork the code before we went public. We do not speak for the
OpenSSL project, and can only point to a
[blog post](https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2020/02/17/QUIC-and-OpenSSL/) and
[openssl-project email](https://github.com/quictls/openssl/discussions/54)
that provides their view of QUIC support.

As stated in their blog post, the OpenSSL team is focused on their 3.0 release
(released 2021-09-07), and does not intend to add QUIC functionality to 1.1.x.
There is a community need for a QUIC-capable TLS library. This fork is intended
as stopgap solution to enable higher level frameworks and runtimes to use QUIC
with the proven and reliable TLS functionality from OpenSSL. This fork will be
maintained until OpenSSL officially provides reasonable support for QUIC
implementations.

This fork can be considered a supported version of
[OpenSSL PR 8797](https://github.com/openssl/openssl/pull/8797).
We will endeavor to track OpenSSL releases within a day or so, and there is an
item below about how we'll follow their tagging.

On to the questions and answers.

What about branches?
--------------------

We don't want to conflict with OpenSSL branch names. Our current plan is to append
`+quic`. Release tags are likely to be the QUIC branch with `-releaseX` appended.
For example, the OpenSSL tag `openssl-3.0.0` would have a branch named
`openssl-3.0.0+quic` and a release tag of `openssl-3.0.0+quic-release1`.

How are you keeping current with OpenSSL?
-----------------------------------------

(In other words, "What about rebasing?")

Our plan is to always rebase on top of an upstream release tag. In particular:

- The changes for QUIC will always be at the tip of the branch -- you will know what
  is from the original OpenSSL and what is for QUIC.
- New versions are quickly created once upstream creates a new tag.
- The use of git commands (such as `cherry`) can be used to ensure that all changes
  have moved forward with minimal or no changes. You will be able to see
  "QUIC: Add X" on all branches and the commit itself will be nearly identical on
  all branches, and any changes to that can be easily identified.

What about library names?
-------------------------

Library names will be the same, but will use a different version number. The version
numbers for the current OpenSSL libraries are `1.1` (for the 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 branches)
and `3` (for the 3.0 branch). We will be prefixing `81` (ASCII for 'Q') to
the version numbers to generate a unique version number.

- `libcrypto.so.81.3` vs `libcrypto.so.3`
- `libcrypto.so.81.1.1` vs `libcrypto.so.1.1`
- `libssl.so.81.3` vs `libssl.so.3`
- `libssl.so.81.1.1` vs `libssl.so.1.1`

The SONAME of these libraries are all different, guaranteeing the correct library
will be used.

...and the executable?
----------------------

We currently do not have any plans to change the name, mainly because we
haven't made any changes there. If you see a need, please open an issue.

The `openssl version` command will report that it is `+quic` enabled.

...and FIPS?
------------

We are not doing anything with FIPS. This is actually good news: you should
be able to load the OpenSSL 3.0 FIPS module into an application built against
this fork and everything should Just Work&#8482;.

How can I contribute?
---------------------

We want any code here to be acceptable to OpenSSL. This means that all contributors
must have signed the appropriate
[contributor license agreements](https://www.openssl.org/policies/cla.html). We
will not ask for copies of any paperwork, you just need to tell us that you've
done so (and we might verify with OpenSSL). We are only interested in making it
easier and better for at least the mentioned QUIC implementations to use a variant
of OpenSSL. If you have a pull request that changes the TLS protocol, or adds
assembly support for a new CPU, or otherwise is not specific to enabling QUIC,
please contribute that to OpenSSL. This fork is intended to be a clean extension
to OpenSSL, with the deltas being specific to QUIC.

Who are you?
------------

This is a collaborative effort between [Akamai](https://www.akamai.com) and
[Microsoft](https://www.microsoft.com). We welcome anyone to contribute!
