Re: LYNX-DEV HTTPS & Lynx?

[David Woolley]

> 
> On Fri, 9 Jan 1998, David Woolley wrote:
> > SSL Lynx can't be distributed in the USA because the RSA patent restricts 
> 
> How do Netscape and Microsoft do it then?

Because they have negotiated and paid the patent royalties, and are not
being distributed under the Gnu licence, but as commercial software, albeit
with no royalties for some uses (including all normal uses for MSIE).

They can also get round the export controls because they are binary only
with reverse engineering restrictions, so they can get a class export 
licence on the assumption that only the trivially crackable 40 bit version
will ever get into foreign hands (I'm sure there are a lot of illegal
copies of the US domestic version, though - and even though MSIE is royalty
free these are actually just as much pirate software as would be an
unauthorised copy of NT itself).

Lynx must have source supplied, so removing any 40 bit restricition would
be trivial - actually, the way it is done is just to build against the
the full version of SSLeay.