🚀 go-pugleaf

dee@skidrow.pa.dec.com ("Beast (Donald E. Eastlake, 3rd)") writes:

>. . .  PKP has issued the following RFC . . .

>Network Working Group                                         R. Fougner
>Request for Comments: 1170                           Public Key Partners
>                                                            January 1991
>                   Public Key Standards and Licenses

 . . . [ document says it's an official statement from PKP ] . . .

>   . . .  We assure the
>   interested parties that Public Key Partners will comply with all of
>   the policies of ANSI and the IEEE concerning the availability of
>   licenses to practice this art.  Specifically, in support of any RSA
>   signature standard which may be adopted, Public Key Partners hereby
>   gives its assurance that licenses to practice RSA signatures will be
>   available under reasonable terms and conditions on a non-
>   discriminatory basis.

Those two sentences sound contradictory to me.  Don't IEEE and ANSI
require all the technologies involved in a standard to be in the public
domain?  If so, the only possible interpretation of "reasonable terms
and conditions" is "free".
-- 
	"You can't get here from here."