Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 05:06:02 +0200 From: Heikki Suonsivu <hsu@cs.hut.fi> To: Peter Wemm <peter@freefall.FreeBSD.org> Cc: freebsd-current@freefall.FreeBSD.org, Brad Parker <brad@fcr.com>, paulus@cs.anu.edu.au Subject: cvs commit: src/usr.sbin/pppd RELNOTES Message-ID: <199511110306.FAA06778@shadows.cs.hut.fi> In-Reply-To: Peter Wemm's message of 10 Nov 1995 23:42:51 %2B0200
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ppp-2.2 doesn't have a RELNOTES file anymore, so the old one here was
rather out of date.. it even suggested that it was ppp-2.1.1 still :-)
I've selected some bits from the README files and pre-pended it so that
at least reading it tells you _something_ about the recent history.
And there is the nasty part:
> Patents.
> ********
>
> The BSD-Compress algorithm used for packet compression is the same as
> that used in the Unix "compress" command. It is apparently covered by
> U.S. patents 4,814,746 (owned by IBM) and 4,558,302 (owned by Unisys),
> and corresponding patents in various other countries (but not
> Australia). If this is of concern, you can build the package without
> including BSD-Compress. To do this, edit net/ppp-comp.h to change the
> definition of DO_BSD_COMPRESS to 0. The bsd-comp.c files are then no
> longer needed, so the references to bsd-comp.o may optionally be
> removed from the Makefiles.
Has anyone looked at it, if it could be modified to do zip compression
instead. In addition to being patent-free it would improve performance?
There is a libary for gzip routines which was used for ssh quite
successfully, but I do not know how well it would sit into a kernel.
The streams code does not apply FreeBSD, but as it is contaminated with a
pretty restrictive copyright (no-no for an ISP: "...nor to provide a
commercial service"). Is there something else than streams code which is
covered by this copyright?
--
Heikki Suonsivu, T{ysikuu 10 C 83/02210 Espoo/FINLAND,
hsu@cs.hut.fi home +358-0-8031121 work -4513377 fax -4555276 riippu SN
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