Using GPG in the US

[Caskey L. Dickson]

On 23 Nov 1998, Paul D. Smith wrote:

> %% "Caskey L. Dickson" <caskey at technocage.com> writes:
> 
>   cld> I can't speak about IDEA, but RSA is patented in the US.  That
>   cld> means that to use it you must have a license from the patent
>   cld> holders.  Without that license, under US intellectual propertly
>   cld> laws you would be infringing upon the creator's (patent holder's)
>   cld> rights of sole exploitation of something they devised.
> 
> Well, but wait.  I took a look at the RSAREF 2.0 library license back in
> Sep. and as far as I can see, you can certainly legally use that for
> non-commercial purposes (that is, no one is paying you money due to your
> use of it) in the USA.

This is very true, however I do not believe that the RSA plugin was built
with RSAREF and therefore does not apply to the discussion as to what the
legal aspects of using the GnuPG RSA and IDEA plugins in the US are. 

I'm sure if someone were to re-write the RSA plugin to use RSAREF then I'm
sure that everyone would be grateful.  It doesn't get around the usage
issue for me personally because almost everything I do is related to my
job.

C=)

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