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Re: gnupg, openssh post RSA patent/US encryption export laws



On Sun, Oct 15, 2000 at 01:16:34AM -0400 or thereabouts, E. Jay Berkenbilt wrote:
> 
> [I'm not currently subscribed to this list, so please cc me on responses.]
> 
> After about September 20, the RSA patent has expired in the USA.
> Also, earlier this year, the USA finally relaxed its export laws
> concerning encryption software.  (There are still some places where
> you can't export encryption, but it's not nearly as bad as it once
> was.)
> 
> With this change, there have been a number of positive developments in
> the open-source world.  For example, gnupg 1.0.3 now supports RSA.
> Also, RedHat 7.0 includes stunnel, openssl, openssh, apache's mod_ssl,
> an ssl-aware smbclient, and perhaps other software that uses the RSA
> algorithm, and since 6.2, Kerberos, gnupg, and the 128-bit version of
> Netscape have been included.
> 
> As far as I can tell, Debian has not moved any of these things out of
> non-free/non-US even for the unstable distribution.  Are there plans
> to do this?  If not, why not?  I'd be grateful if someone could shed
> some light on this issue.
> 
> For what it's worth, I'm brand new to Debian (just trying it this
> weekend for the first time) but I've been using Linux since 1992 and
> UNIX in general since 1987, so I apologize if this has been discussed
> already....  I did search the October archives of this list before
> posting...
> 
> Thanks
> 
> --
> E. Jay Berkenbilt (ejb@ql.org)  |  http://www.ql.org/q/
> 

There's now an ongoing vote among developers on what to do with non-free/non-US
software thus affecting the Social Contract.  Check the social contract after
this month.


-- 
Who's watching the watchmen?

ICQ: 15096825



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