(racoon2 13) Re: racoon2 release

Shoichi Sakane <[email protected]> wrote:

> We did not consider to place the repository in Europe because it is
> meaningless if publishing our code may infringe on the rights
> although i am not sure that we are sued when we just publish our code.

Well, my idea is that other people could contribute the patent
encumbered code.    

> have you checked that there is no patent related to IKE, DH or Public
> cryptography, etc in Europe?  If there is no patent then you are right.

Software patents are not legal in european countries. A lot of sotware
patents have been granted by european patent offices, but none of them
comply with the national laws, which say that computer programs are not
pattenable. So the question whether a patent related to IKE, DH or
cryptography exists in Europe is meaningless. If such patent exists, it
does not comply with IP laws, and any court will declare it invalid.
 
> > - 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. 
> I agree that we can safely write and use that code.  I dont agree with
> distributing it safely.

Here "we" was developpers involved in the ipsec-tools project. I wasn't
including you in this "we". I don't know if you can commit patent
encumbered code [to a repository in a country where software patents are
not legal] if you live in a country where the patent exist. 
 
> > 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. 
> Certicom claims to have the IPR related to DH groups.  are you sure
> that a code using MODP group 1 does not infringe on the IPR ?
> IBM also has a IPR related to DH exchange.  it was raised when S/MIME
> was standardised.  Did you remove code related to that ?

Why should I? Such patents would be illegal in my country. I won't even
check if they exist or not.
 
> > The question whether the source code can be
> > distributed in such country is another question. Is a cvs checkout safe?
> > I don't know. 
> my simple question is that:
> for example, there is a IPR in U.S., but the IPR is not legal in Europe.
> you publish a code contained the IPR from Europe.  an user download the
> code to U.S., compile and use it in U.S.  are you sure that you are not
> sued from the patent holder in this case ?

I have trouble to immagine how the patent holder could. He would have to
sue me in a french court for something that is not an offence in France.
Difficult. The US user could be sued for using patent encumbered code,
though. This is why the patent encumbered code is disabled by default
and tagged as encumbered in ipsec-tools. 

What I don't know is whether a US user doing a cvs checkout would be at
risk or not. That question is important, because if this is safe, that
also means that developpers living in a country where software patent
exist can work on a repository containing patent encumbered code. 

-- 
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]