Re: LYNX-DEV SSL Distribution (Was: Lynx 2.7.1)

[David Woolley]

> doing. All cryptography work is done outside the US and available only from
> non-US ftp servers. That way it is available to all including people in the
> US. It would make it annoying because American's wouldn't be able to ftp it
> from a nearby ftp server.

This would only work for source distributions, and even then I'm not sure
if the necessary restrictions are compatible with the GPL++.  Any binary
distributions would need to contain a "not for distribution in the USA
clause", because they would be in breach of US patents, if they didn't
contain RSAREF, and, if they did contain it, would probably be in breach
of the RSAREF copyright and definitely in breach of the GPL (RSAREF
doesn't permit free commercial use; GPL doesn't permit distribution
which forbids free commercial use).  Even distributing with a "not for
distribution in the USA" clause, requires checking with the Free Software
Foundation, as I see no evidence that the GPL permits such a restriction
to be added to a derived work, as against an original work (if allowed,
it could prevent the original authors having access to the derivation
of their work!).

Note that PGP was taken out of the GPL (presumably because of RSA) and
SSLeay has a Berkeley style licence.

These caveats don't apply to the proxy solution (except possibly to the
hooks in Lynx to support it), as the proxy can have any licence it likes,
although separate commercial and non commercial versions will be needed
(non-commercial version using RSAREF and distributable in the USA; commercial
version, not using RSAREF, and not distributable in the USA).

++ Generally the GPL expects the recipient of a program to have as much
right to redistribute as the giver; being able to give to the USA, but not
from it, seems to violate this principle.  The GPL allows countries to be
excluded as recipients on patent grounds, but a ruling is needed as to whether
the USA could be excluded because of its export control laws and whether the
effect of those laws prevents distribution to the USA.