I'll make an orthoganal comment. IANAL but it is so sad when ppl become afraid to do anything because of the percived threats from the lawyers.
I read "Free as in Freedom" today, a biography of Richard Stallman. First I've always been impressed with Stallman from a number of standpoints. Second, I admire him because he was never afraid to stand up for his principals. We need to remember this when we look at the threats that we face. The book is worthy of your time to read it. But there is a quote in there... I can't find it! The gist is that if you are not willing to fight for your freedoms you will lose them. The bottom line (IANAL) is that you can use whatever you want with no worries. The restrictions derive from the idea that you are working with "munitions" and that you must not "export" anything from the US. A webserver doing e-commerce is noted as an exception since the only thing that it exports via whatever encryption is a bill. Congress found it acceptable to export bills with strong encription. Go figure. I have never encountered anything that will limit you. You just should not "export" anything. It is permissable to "use" anything but you must not put up on your server for instance that "this program that my server mates with can be found here on my server". You can say "this program that my program mates with can be found on that server in Brisbane in Australia". Even though these are in fact the same programs (written in australia) .. this is where openssl was born with Eric Young and Tim Hudson. BTW - If you are a charity then you probably don't have assets and you cannot be sued... Well - who cares... SO if you have no money what are you worried about? (I am SURE to recieve flack over this cynical comment!). I could be even more cynical but I will excersize restraint. On Fri, May 24, 2002 at 04:13:06PM -0700, David Schwartz wrote: > > On Fri, 24 May 2002 15:28:44 -0700 (PDT), john traenky wrote: > >OpenSSL is the cornerstone for Open Source projects > >using encryption. Has anyone done an analysis of what > >legalities need doing to use it legally in the United > >States? I have several charities and the like who'd > >love to use it but can't risk a legal conflict. TIA. > > Read the laws yourself and come to your own conclusions or hire a lawyer. > That said, it is my opinion that you are more or less okay if you publish > your source code. Otherwise, you need to obtain a license or license > exemption. This procedure is quite straightforward. > > DS > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org > Development Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org Development Mailing List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
