Alexandre Oliva wrote:
On Jul 29, 2008, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
No, RSAREF couldn't have been modified. It had restricted
distribution and everyone had to get their own copy.
http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/browse_thread/thread/ecc4d4ff360019e/b3dbb6f89144b706?lnk=st&q=gnu.misc.discuss+ripem#b3dbb6f89144b706
http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/crypt/cryptography/rpem/ripem/
http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/crypt/cryptography/rpem/ripem/README
http://www.nic.funet.fi/index/crypt/cryptography/rpem/ripem/rsaref/
There is indeed a lot of conflicting information out there, and the
files above are older than the discussion, but the point stands that
some piece of software could only be distributed under the GPL, and by
people who had accepted a patent license that prevented them from
doing just that, regardless of any copyright license
incompatibilities.
The origin of fgmp should be when the discussion was resolved, probably
1993'ish. And the point was, and is, that the GPL makes really free
software distribution difficult or impossible even when source is
available for everything. Note that it was Stallman himself leading the
charge against this free distribution, and probably against the wishes
of the gmp author(s) if that wasn't him. Later the license on the gmp
library was changed to lgpl. I assume someone learned about the
harmful effect of the gpl from this experience and chose to reduce it,
but even so, there are still reasons that force others to duplicate the
work:
http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/ReplacingGMPNotes#ReasonsforReplacingGMPastheBignumlibrary
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
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