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Re: lynx-dev SSL


From: Kim DeVaughn
Subject: Re: lynx-dev SSL
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 08:13:48 -0700

On Mon, Dec 06, 1999, David Woolley (address@hidden) said:
|
| If you are a commercial user in the USA, or any other country with
| software patents and a valid patent on RSA, and, in the case of the USA,
| you are a US citizen, you might be able to buy a licence for RSA, but it
| is probably not worth the trouble.  Once you have such a licence, you
| can build an SSL Lynx.

Fortunately, the patent on RSA expires next year, though I forget the
exact date ... IIRC, it's somewhere around the August timeframe.


| There have been some changes in the USA, but they don't affect the
| intellectual property position and appear not to affect open source
| software.

Contrary to some reports in media articles, such is (suposedly) NOT
the *intent* of the new (Draft) regulations.

I have been talking to Jim Lewis at the Dept of Commerce WRT the Draft,
and its "clarity" (lack thereof) about "open source" "products" such as
lynx and mutt.

He's told me (via email) that the goal is to let open source stuff go
with very few restrictions.  He's admitted that the Draft is somewhat
unclear, and they are working to clarify the relevant sections (740.13
for open source, and 740.17(4) for "proprietary stuff in the public
domain" (whatever *that* is supposed to mean)).

We shall see just how clear said revisions make things ... :-) ...

/kim

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