Re: Not-so-mass bug filing for the patented IDEA algorithm
* Pierre Habouzit:
> On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 09:09:23AM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
>> I plan to file a couple of bugs (not too many, probably a dozen) on
>> packages which contain implementations of the patented IDEA algorithm
>> -- because the presence of that code makes them non-free.
>
> "because" ? I fail to see the logic in there
AFAIK, the IDEA algorithm is one of those that's considered encumbered
and off-limits.
>> As far as I know, no program in Debian actually uses this code, it's
>> just inherited from upstream libraries.
>
> AFAICT Debian just ignores patents,
We don't ship the IDEA plugin for GnUPG for patent reasons. This
caused a real hassle for users who migrated from PGP 2.
> else we would have to remove maybe 70% of the archive. Are IDEA
> patents actively enforced ?
Yes, they are. There are some (no longer published) rules for gratuit
licenses, but they don't apply to Debian and its mirror network, and
certainly not to commercial downstream users.
The presence of the IDEA algorithm in cryptographic libraries is a
trap we should disarm.
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