Re: encryption licenses
On Wed, Nov 17, 1999 at 08:47:20 -0800, aphro wrote:
> What i'd like to know, if anyone can enlighten me is whats teh deal with
> using encryption in a commercial enviornment?
There is no /general/ problem using encryption in a commercial environment.
Some (reasonably popular) encryption algorithms are patented though, and for
them there are license issues. In particular, the RSA public key encryption
algorithm is patented in the US, and the IDEA symmetric key encryption is
patented in large parts of Europe. There are unencumered alternative
algorithms for both forms of encryption (e.g. Diffie/Hellman for public and
Blowfish for symmetric key encryption).
> I downgraded my SSH 2 servers to SSH1 a while back when i heard that the
> license had changed in regaurds to commercial use.
The only free SSH is OpenSSH. SSH1, like SSH2, dosn't allow commercial use,
but for SSH2 the term "commercial use" is defined (and its definition is
more strict than a common sense one).
> Another question is SSL ..there are a few GPL/free SSL servers/modules out
> there..but are they clear for commercial use?
They most likely are if they either do not use RSA, or you are not in the
USA.
HTH,
Ray
--
ART A friend of mine in Tulsa, Okla., when I was about eleven years old.
I'd be interested to hear from him. There are so many pseudos around taking
his name in vain.
- The Hipcrime Vocab by Chad C. Mulligan
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