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Re: comments on PGP *5*



On Tue, Sep 15, 1998 at 09:49:08PM -0500, Zed Pobre wrote:
> > Because just making the thing RSAREF-using violates the license AFAIK.
>   
>     This is incorrect.  If that were true, the MIT and PGP Inc
> versions could never have been distributed (they both use RSAREF).
> The original RSA library written by Zimmerman was MPILIB, and is used
> in the international version.  

MIT version of pgp5?

still, I think it is not considered acceptable to the company for you to
take the i version and make it a us version.


> > Lets see...  RSAREF is slower and violates pgp license, but pgp5-i is faster
> > and violates a patent who says you're free to use RSA non-commercially
> > provided you use their version of it.
> 
>     MPILIB is in fact faster (nominally) than RSAREF.  I think most
> people will only notice the difference on slower machines or during
> key generation.  You're also mixing the terms "patent" and "license"
> here.  IIRC, PKP holds a patent valid only in the USA on the use of
> RSA in encryption, and has licensed it for non-commercial use provided
> that only the RSAREF implementation is used.

I thought RSA owned the patent, my mistake.


> > If you can't win for losing, use the faster one.  If I'm wrong about the
> > copyright, you may consider making that RSAREF version.  Better yet, since
> > RSAREF cannot be exported, but is in non-us since somebody already HAS, let
> > someone outside the US do it, safer that way.
> 
>     If you're not particularly concerned about breaking the law, use
> the MPILIB one.  If you are, a few compile-time defines documented in
> the source code will create a version that uses RSAREF instead of
> MPILIB.  A few more flags (and two file deletions, IIRC) will generate
> a version of PGP completely indistinguishable from the one that PGP
> Inc provides.  The only licensing issue is the "You may not distribute
> any derivative works" bit in the Freeware license, but nobody has gone
> after Schumacher yet, so it may be legal under one of the other two
> main licenses included with the source.

A binary of the i version modified to work with RSAREF may be considered
derived, depending.  I'll have to download pgp5 source to look.

Attachment: pgpeeHQrxnb34.pgp
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