Joshua Kinard wrote: > Hmm, it looks like dropbear is relying heavily on the ecc/ecdsa functions > provided in libtomcrypt, and that library's homepage states all its code is > public domain. Our ebuild has no bindist restrictions on that library. > Perhaps that is how dropbear, and thus Red Hat, avoids the issues with > licensing or patents?
Licenses apply to implementations and patents apply to inventions/ideas. A software license can allow you to theoretically use an implementation while a patent says no you can't without licensing that right separately. The reverse is equally possible; an expired patent means that using the invention/idea is not restricted by the patent anymore, but there may still be no free/open source implementation (yet). AIUI USE=-bindist is all three variants (swlicense_says_no || patent_says_no) while USE=bindist promises that (swlicense_says_yes && patent_says_yes) is guaranteed to be true at the cost of functionality? //Peter
