Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 18:14:14 -0800 (PST) From: Kris Kennaway <kris@hub.freebsd.org> To: Clifton Royston <cliftonr@lava.net> Cc: EKR <ekr@rtfm.com>, Matt Heckaman <matt@ARPA.MAIL.NET>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Trouble installing xpdf port in 3.4-stable Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0002291810010.30179-100000@hub.freebsd.org> In-Reply-To: <20000229091635.A23590@lava.net>
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On Tue, 29 Feb 2000, Clifton Royston wrote:
> But isn't there a US patent issue (though it might expire later this
> year, I believe) preventing distributing or using RSA code inside the
> US without a license, unless you use RSA's approved reference version?
Yes. Section 6.5 in the handbook attempts to explain the issues, but
please note that it doesn't describe the current state of OpenSSL in
FreeBSD 4.0 and will be changing in the next few days to better reflect
reality.
> And my understanding is that the latter has various legal conditions
> attached and so is undesirable for anybody outside the US. If I
It's not illegal, but no-one outside the US should be using it because,
pure and simple, it's crap. Slow as cold molasses, and can't handle keys
greater than 1024 bits. The OpenSSL native RSA implementation is much
faster, so you really want to use that one if you're allowed to (which
means everyone except people in the US).
> understand their rules, I'm stretching it a bit by using from my home
> machine to work, for instance.
Right, for US people there ARE legal strings attached, because RSAREF is
not licensed for general use, but it's the only version you may use. You
can only use it for 'noncommercial purposes' - for an exact definition of
that see /usr/ports/security/rsaref/files/LICENSE or LICENSE.english for
an (RSA-supplied) english interpretation.
Kris
----
In God we Trust -- all others must submit an X.509 certificate.
-- Charles Forsythe <forsythe@alum.mit.edu>
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