Re: LYNX-DEV SSLynx

[Greg Stark]

David Woolley <address@hidden> writes:
> > Does anyone have a compiled Lynx 2.7.2 for Linux, preferably with SSL 
> > already put in it?  Same for BSDI.  I'd like to give them to my Linux and 
> Providing an SSL binary of Lynx to a third party would be illegal as it would
> have to include RSAREF

This is far from the whole story. There's only one country where using RSAREF
would be at all useful, the US. In the rest of the world RSA enjoys no patent
protection and Lynx could be linked with SSLeay using the native RSA code (if
it using encryption is legal at all). And as you describe using RSAREF is only
helpful for non-commercial use so it's not really a useful "solution".

In other words the solution is not to provide binaries in the US or do crypto
development work in the US. If Americans want to get copies they can get them
from non-US ftp sites just as easily. Let them take legal responsibility for
preventing the re-export of the technology and the patent restrictions on the
use of the imported code.

This is quite non-intuitive; Americans often assume the export restrictions
mean work should continue in the US and they'll have to take great pains to
prevent export violations. That approach is just a waste of time. Nothing is
going to relieve the patent restrictions in the US or the crypto ban in
France, but once implemented outside the US a product can be imported and used
anywhere it isn't outright illegal. A product implemented in the US is
basically a wasted effort and can't be used anywhere but in the US and even
there only within the patent restrictions.

greg