Alexandre Oliva wrote:
On Jul 28, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
RSAREF didn't stop the program from being created in the first place,
or from being distributed under the GPL in source form.
Per the FSF, RIPEM was a derived work of gmp and could not be
distributed execept under the GPL. However that was impossible
because RSAREF was needed and had other terms.
I don't see where the FSF said such a thing. I see the FSF discussing
restrictive patent licenses that SSH developers had accepted, and that
didn't permit them to distribute the work under the GPL, with as
little as plugs for RSAREF to be used.
Err... Digging further, I found out that RIPEM included RSAREF, and
it was RSAREF itself that had been modified in such a way that it
became a derived work of GPLed work.
No, RSAREF couldn't have been modified. It had restricted distribution
and everyone had to get their own copy.
http://www.csm.ornl.gov/~dunigan/rsaref.txt
(much later, slightly before the patent ran out, the rsa algorithm was
release into the public domain)
The linkage to a main program that also linked to gmp is what triggered
the claim that it was a derived work. It's hard to find stuff this old
on the internet but I did run across this indication that we are in a
time warp regarding discussions of what RMS claims are derived works:
http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-activists/1993/7/7/36929 (2nd
hand quote saying you can't run anything but GPL'd code on Linux...).
So this modified version of
RSAREF could only be distributed under the GPL, which neither the
patent license nor the copyright license under which RSAREF were
provided permitted.
It was the linkage to both libraries that made any usable terms for
distribution impossible, even though separately both needed libraries
were available in source.
So is looks like it is the main program (SSH?) that was the
distraction.
RIPEM was more of a PGP-alike - ahead of its time:
http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/Library/Article/Crypto/ripem.faq.
Anyhow, if you have pointers to more specific
information about what the FSF actually wrote (all I found was
second-hand hearsay), I'd love to know more about it.
I haven't been able to find the after-the-fact summary where the policy
of considering a work a GPL derivative if it used library functionality
that was only available under the GPL, but would not be when another
compatible library became available was explained but I remember seeing
it. Here's the usenet thread where Stallman announced the problem and
an assortment of reactions follow. In an even stranger time warp, one
of the comments was mine - along with some interesting trivia by Alan
Cox, Dan Bernstein and even Linus. Ah, nostalgia...
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/browse_frm/thread/e117072f9260d78a
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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