Re: LYNX-DEV please help me with these urls (fwd)

[David Woolley]

> 
> this html uses javascript.  can you tell me the write urls so Ican go to
> them manually?

This looks as though it is so fundamentally targetted at Netscape that
you won't get much further, but look in the last else clause for the fallback
URLs - this got, inappropriately, BASE64 encoded, so I can't read it when
composing the reply.  In any case, the fallback URLs are fairly obvious by
inspection.

> are you able to put in java support in either bobcat or lynx?

Who is "you"?  General javascript support probably means re-writing large 
parts of Lynx, although sufficient support for this example might not be
so bad.  There have been suggestions that there may be intellectual property
rights problems, as well.  If you look in the archives, you will find that
people have made a start on this; you will have to make your own judgements
as to whether or not a useful result will arise.

It's likely that Javascript would be implemented first for Unix.

> also I'd like to know if you are able to make lynx work with https servers
> secure servers

Yes.  But, it was done in the USA and export** from North America is
not allowed, certainly not to Australia, and there are other legal
issues involved.  Annoyingly, it uses SSLeay, which is Australian
written SSL software, and therefore exportable to the USA, but not
re-exportable from the USA.  If you want to add SSL support yourself,
you are free to do so and are outside of the reach of the US patents.
However, your version can't be used in the USA, because it would breach
a patent++ - note, I'm not sure that you could legally distribute an SSL
version without obtaining a revised licence from the copyright owners,
as it would involve imposing an additional restriction on the licence,
and the GPL doesn't appear to permit that (the restriction is that it may
not be distributed in the USA, and my reading is that the GPL allows such
a restriction to be made, but only by the original copyright owners - if
you intend to produce anything more than a patch, I would advise getting
advice from the Free Software Foundation on the exact interpretation
of the licence - RSA is so fundamental to the software patents issue,
that it is unlikely that an exception will be made - your only hope
would be that the licence was always intended to allow the author of a
derived work to impose the restriction unilaterally).

You might want to consider that the versions of Netscape and MSIE that
are legally available in Australia have been nobbled to only cost a few
tens of dollars to break with commercial PCs and probably a lot less
with specialist tools.

> and can I get the lynx source code? not the normal lynx source code just
> the doslynx or the dos part of the source code.  when I unzip the lynx

Forget DOS Lynx, it is obsolete.  For the recent ports of Unix Lynx to DOS,
it is a legal obligation of the supplier of the binary to provide the source
code on demand and at no more than reasonable copying costs (non-commercial
suppliers are permitted to tell you from where you can download it).  Demand
your rights from whoever supplied you with the binary.  Note that there is 
no obligation to supply anything less than the complete source code.

I suspect DOSLynx, like most DOS "freeware" was binary only.  The DOS
port of Unix Lynx will have nearly all its source code in common with Unix.
I'm not sure of the intellectual property status of Bobcat.

Unfortunately the size of the source is sufficient that I'm not going to
download it just to look at a version for which I don't have compilers.

> source code the filenames are too long and pkunzip doesn't get it all
> unzipped.
> thanks and I hope you can help.

Use the freeware Info ZIP, which can be built for Win32 and long
filenames, or do a umsdos install of Linux.  There is no guarantee
that the DOS port wasn't compiled under a VFAT or NTFS filesystem,
and maintaining parallel 8.3 filnames is likely to cause maintenance
problems, even if it has actually been done.


++ SSLeay breaches the patent on the RSA algorithm.  USA users must use
RSAREF instead of SSLeay for the actual public key part of the code.
Moreover, they may not distribute SSL Lynx royalty free for commercial
use, which, under the GPL means they may not distribute it at all.
I believe the Lynx web site has details of legal workarounds for
non-commercial use.  I assume that the copyright on RSAREF means that
the commercial use restriction on US versions would apply world wide.

Other parts of SSLeay are covered by a Netscape patent, although it 
appears that Netscape don't intend to require royalties, but I would advise
getting a licence from Netscape which permits royalty free use under all
situations in which distribution of a derived work is permitted by the GPL.

The O'Reilly Apache book has a good discussion on these issues, but predates
the Netscape patent.

** It's a serious criminal offence, almost at the level of minor espionage.
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