Anonymous writes: # Consider this scenario ... Mixmaster get's bought by the Acme # Crypto Company of Ft. Meade, MD. They "improve" it, and offer a new # version. It's even FREE (for non-commerical use)! But their # "improvements" make it incompatible with previous versions, and so # you have to upgrade. The new "commercial" version comes with no # SOURCE CODE, of course... Lance Cottrell writes:
4) There will always be a free version of the client with source code.
While I have not discussed it, I can not imagine that there would not also be a free version of the server code (with source). Without remailers what is the point of the client software?
Beyond taking Lance on his PGP-signed-word, which I'm strongly inclined to do, I suspect he may not have much legal leeway in this regard. With the caveat that I Am Not A Lawyer, it seems to me that the GNU General Public License (Version 1 from 1989, Mix/GNU.license in the Mixmaster .tar or http://hopf.math.nwu.edu/docs/Gnu_License), which covers all extant distributions of Mixmaster, has some significant implications for any commercial development of Mixmaster. It's applicable to "the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language". The GNU GPL specifies that: 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, and copy and distribute such modifications under the terms of Paragraph 1 above, provided that you also do the following: [...] b) cause the whole of any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains the Program or any part thereof, either with or without modifications, to be licensed at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this General Public License (except that you may choose to grant warranty protection to some or all third parties, at your option). and that: 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a portion or derivative of it, under Paragraph 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: a) accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, [...] or, b) accompany it with a written offer, [...] to give any third party free (except for a nominal charge for the cost of distribution) a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, [...] So it looks to me as though Mixmaster source code will continue to be legally available, no matter what.... Better informed interpretations are enthusiastically solicited. -Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>