🚀 go-pugleaf

leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens ) writes:
> >Unfortunately, this method is claimed to be the subject of two
> >different patents ...
> 
> I wonder if we can get around such patents.
[...]
>                                                       People could:
> 
> * Make it _very_ easy to replace the patented algorithm with another:
>    * Put it in its own separate source file
>    * Make the interface small and clean
> and:
> * Distribute the patented algorithm with the source, maybe ifdef'ed out.

This sounds like the sort of fiasco which occurs with DES. Products using DES
encryption are written by American software houses; the government forces
them to remove the DES routines before export; the code is shipped over to
this side of the Atlantic; European programmers glue their own DES routines
back in again.

I agree; if you have to put up with legal stupidity, you might as well work
around it.


mathew.
--
Internet: mathew@mantis.co.uk / mathew%mantis.co.uk@ukc.ac.uk
    UUCP: mathew@mantis.UUCP / ...!mcsun!ukc!ibmpcug!mantis!mathew
  If you know anything significant about ISDN, please mail me...