(racoon2 11) Re: racoon2 release

Shoichi Sakane <[email protected]> wrote:

> > Did you consider having a code repository in Europe for patent
> > encumbered stuff? The recent moves strongly suggests that software
> > patents will never be legal here. 
> 
> are you sure that we will not be sued if we only move the repository to
> any Europe ?  we are developping the things which are disclosed at the
> IETF IPR directory.

I did not said "you should have a repository in Europe", I just asked if
you considered it.  

Your repository currently doesn't contain any patent encumbered code
(well, at least any you know about, because that's what evil with
software patent: you can never be sure), so you can move it anywhere you
want safely.

The questions I have no answer for are:

- will you be able to safely contribute patent encumbered code to that
repository? An european resident will, but I don't know for someone that
live in a country where software patent are legal. At least some people
will be able to contribute patent-encumbered code.

- will you be able to safely use the code that come from that
repository? That's the big question. ipsec-tools contains patent
encumbered code. We ipsec-tools developpers know it but none of us live
in a country where software patent are legal. We can safely write, use
and distribute that code. We made all the patent-encumbered code
optionnal and documented it as such. That way ipsec-tools can be built
in an IPR-free flavor that can be used in a country where
software-patent are legal. The question whether the source code can be
distributed in such country is another question. Is a cvs checkout safe?
I don't know.

-- 
Emmanuel Dreyfus
Le cahier de l'admin BSD 2eme ed. est dans toutes les bonnes librairies
http://www.eyrolles.com/Informatique/Livre/9782212114638/livre-bsd.php
[email protected]