This one time, at band camp, Tollef Fog Heen said: > * "Sergei Golovan" > > | On 1/3/07, Stephen Gran <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > | > Yes, many do. It's also not immediately clear to me that this is under > | > a non-free license. I agree that it could be better worded, but that's > | > not quite the same thing. > | > | Kenneth Lundin has pointed me (in erlang-questions mailing list) to > | the following document: http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/RSA-MD-all > | > | It more clearly states that any implementation of the MD2, MD4, and > | MD5 algorithms, derived from the reference C code in RFC-1319, > | RFC-1320, and RFC-1321 may be distrbuted. > > No, it states that you may sell implementations derived from the > reference code. Note that in the second paragraph it says «may be > made, used, and sold», while in the third (where it restricts what you > may do) it says «no right to use, copy, sell, or distribute» which > seems to imply that you're allowed to sell (but not distribute the > code outside of a sale).
It's a bit unclear to me, but it appears that they are actually speaking about many works in this paragraph. The clarification says that while they grant rights to do '...' with implementations derived from the reference C code in those RFCs, "no right to use, copy, sell, or distribute any other implementations ... is hereby granted ... ". I still think it's fairly clear that if they allow you to "[sell] without license", they allow distribution. But I am unsure of the meaning of the second paragraph - I assume that RSA has several implementations, and they are trying to say that you have these rights to the reference implementations, but no rights to the other implementations without a license from RSA. Since I don't actually know that to be the case, though, I would like to hear from someone who does. Take care, -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- | ,''`. Stephen Gran | | : :' : [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | `. `' Debian user, admin, and developer | | `- http://www.debian.org | -----------------------------------------------------------------
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