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Re: Netscape goes GPL.



On Mon, 26 Jan 1998, Eli Marmor wrote:

> will provide an open API to connect external plug-ins (e.g. Sun's
> Java Activator) to be plugged into Communicator, so the missing
> features will be compensated by external plug-ins...

perfectly acceptable, that's the Unix way, afterall :-)

> > RSA is included in PGP and other free source products.
> 
> And he (I forgot his name) sat in jail for that. I agree that the
> American law is funny, but don't argue with me; Argue with the
> American DOJ.

ummm, no.

Phil Zimmerman was sued by RSA for writing a freeware version of their
patented RSAREF library, distributed in the US as objects for free
restricted usage. he based his library on the academic work of the 3
professors (all three Israelis, AFAIR) as published by the MIT publishing
house, before it was copyrighted and licensed.

Mr. Zimerman quickly obliged (even though his library is much faster!) and
continued to distribute PGP in the US staticaly linked to RSAREF instead,
as requested. at some point PGP "leaked" out of the US, through the
Internet, then he was haunted by the FBI for exporting munition, but after
a 5 year investigation they found nothing against him either. AFAIK he
never did time for any of the two above charges.

umm, this is beyond the topic of the thread, but since we're in the
fact-correcting mood already... :-)

http://www.pgp.com/phil/phil.cgi

--
Ira Abramov    <ira(a)scso.com>     whois: IA58
** Linux is like a Vorlon.  It is incredibly powerful, gives terse,
cryptic answers and has a lot of things going on in the background.