Re: Irony of RSA Encryption

[Paul Serice <serice@bigfoot.com>]

Samuel Hocevar wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Sep 15, 2000, Paul Serice wrote:
> 
> > Has anyone else noticed the irony that RSA now has fewer restrictions
> > than any software covered by the GPL?
> 
>    I'm sorry, but I don't understand the relevance of your point, since
> RSA is an algorithm, not a software product. There are still a lot of
> proprietary RSA implementations, and I doubt they'll ever be put into
> the public domain.


http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/savingeurope.html shows how the borders
between the issue are treated as transparent.

The tone of the FSF and the GPL is one of moral superiority.  For
example, look at http://www.fsf.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html where you
can find the section entitled: "A stark moral choice."

This is what it boils down to: "anything added to or combined with a
copylefted program must be such that the larger combined version is
also free and copylefted."  This is a restriction -- and a rather
large one.

This is a good choice for some things, but it's insane to consider it
to be a morally superior position.

The irony is in the morality.  The current system yields intellectual
property that discriminates against no one.  Anyone can make use of
the intellectual property however they see fit.  You cannot say the
same for the GPL.

You could say the same for the LGPL, but the FSF considers what was
once known as the "Library General Public License" to now be the
"Lesser General Public License"  --  a disturbing trend.



Paul