Re: [CryptoAPI-devel] cipher licensing...

[Herbert V. R. <hv...@hv...>]

On Mon, 2002-04-08 at 13:43, Kyle McMartin wrote:
>> aes, dfc, mars, rc5, rc6:  looks like 4-clause BSD
>>  (most are written by gladman... maybe we can get him to change the
>> license to "dual GPL/BSD"? that way we would have most of the work
>> done...)

> I recall him stating that he had no objection to his ciphers being used i=
n Free software works, but we'd better email him to check. His license is m=
ore or less, use it how you wish, subject to the restrictions placed upon t=
he algorithm by its creators. I would interpret this as public domain, if t=
he algorithm itself is public domain.

well, I've seen such a passage myself... you can find it in jari's aes.c
file right at the beginning:

// I retain copyright in this code but I encourage its free use provided
// that I don't carry any responsibility for the results. I amespecially //=
 happy to see it used in free and open source software. If you do use=20
// it I would appreciate an acknowledgement of its origin in the code or
// the product that results and I would also appreciate knowing a little
// about the use to which it is being put. I am grateful to Frank Yellin
// for some ideas that are used in this implementation.
//
// Dr B. R. Gladman <br...@gl...> 6th April 2001.

see also
http://lists.freeswan.org/pipermail/design/2001-December/001595.html

jari declares his aes implementation (which is derived from gladmans
4-clause AES implementation as well... but a more recent version...) to
be GPL'ed -- he does this implicitly, by defining MODULE_LICENSE("GPL")
in loop.c, which links against aes.c and results in a loop.o module...

well... I really don't know, if his doing so is the right thing or
not... IMHO we should get some official statement from gladman himself,
to find out whether he is ok w/ dual licensing his work... and/or what
he thinks about the license of our currently used aes implementation,
which is definitely a bit older...

btw, official URL for gladman's aes implementation:
http://fp.gladman.plus.com/cryptography_technology/rijndael/index.htm

>> idea: no license?!?
> I don't think it matters, since its patented. The question is can we be h=
eld accountable for breaches of the algorithms patent? (no commercial use).=
..
well... I'm toying w/ the idea to move cipher-idea to the yet to be
created add-on cipher package...

regards,
--=20
Herbert Valerio Riedel       /    Phone: (EUROPE) +43-1-58801-18840
Email: hv...@hv...       /    Finger hv...@gn... for GnuPG Public Key
GnuPG Key Fingerprint: 7BB9 2D6C D485 CE64 4748  5F65 4981 E064 883F
4142