Re: ssh anyone?
Ian Jackson:
>
> Marek Michalkiewicz writes ("ssh anyone?"):
> ...
> > The license says it may not be sold commercially without permission, but
> > including it on CD-ROMs with other free software is explicitly permitted.
> > It would be real nice to have it standard, along with a ssh-aware rdist.
>
> The copyright sounds fair enough for us, then, provided that we can
> get a similar exemption from them for tapes and other high-volume
> media.
It shouldn't be much problem if we ask the author nicely, I guess...
Failing that - the copyright has been changed only recently, the older one
doesn't have this restriction and there weren't many changes since then.
(BTW, PGP 2.3a is under the GPL so it should be possible to fix a few
bugs, add a few new features, and make it a "free" package at least for
non-US people.)
> You're confusing patent and ITAR issues. We can't do very much about
> the patent issues, apart from perhaps put the package(s) in non-free.
No I'm not confusing them - I just mentioned both in the same sentence.
It will have to be in non-free for the US distribution, but as far as
I know the RSA patent is only valid in the US, so there should be no
problem with distribution on CD-ROMs sold outside the US. By default
ssh uses IDEA which is patented here, too, but can be built to use
triple-DES (which is free of patent issues, I hope) instead.
Anyway, ssh in non-free is better than no ssh at all...
> We're working on sorting out the ITAR mess. Please bear with us, and
> don't make a lot of FUD[1] and noise in the meantime :-). We are most
> vulnerable to these kinds of issues if they are discussed loudly and
> heatedly in public. If you want anything clarifying please email me
> privately.
OK, I'll stop making FUD for a while :-). I just thought it would be
easier to make an international version of the distribution, than to
fight with all that bureaucracy...
Marek
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