LYNX-DEV Re: ender: address@hidden

[Alan Cox]

> Alan Cox, is I believe in the UK, so he is not constrained by the RSA
> patents.  This means that he could create a pure SSLeay based build of

Correct. I live in the free world rather than the USA or france. I also dont
build Lynx stuff any more (its no longer "useful" to my work). There is
a 2.7.1 lynx ssl on ftp.replay.com:/pub/replay/pub/redhat. Replay is also
in the free world and carries large numbers of packages that american sites
cannot hold and US companies cannot ship. Ask your senator why the US has
a policy of cripping its own companies..

> Lynx.  I'm still not sure whether he could legally distribute this, but
> it is possibly a grey area, providing he includes a not distributable in
> the USA clause (personally I would want a ruling from the Free Software
> Foundation first - it is not clear whether one can create a derived work
> which it is illegal to give to the original copyright owner!).

It isnt my problem if a US citizen gets involved in a US civil court action.

> (copyright violation on RSAREF).  There is a whole clause in the GPL which
> basically says, if you can't distribute it such that commercial use is
> permitted, royalty free, you can't distribute at all.

Correct - which is why PGP isnt available under the GPL in the US, just the
free world.

> There are two laws involved: US criminal law and US civil patent law.  Any
> restriction on source code might fall under the former, but only if the
> code used nobbled keys and explicit permission to export had been obtained
> for the binaries; I think neither is likely.  The patent restriction probably
> applies much more to the binaries than the source (patents on source only
> wouldn't make sense, at least in the rest of the world, where disclosure is
> a requirement for patents, but then we don't have software patents).

US citizens can get clobbered under civil law for patent violation - which does
not cover distribution nor certain other uses (eg some research). A US citizen
exporting crypto can in theory get several years in jail as a federal offence.
Just walking out of the USA with lynx-ssl on your laptop is sufficient...

Alan