Richard Stallman <rms@santafe.edu> writes:
I beg your pardon, but this is no mistake. I'm well aware of the people who argue for donating code to companies "so it will be more widely used."
This is really an interesting, and subtle, point. The goals might well be different, but I suspect they're more complementary than most of us immediately realize. Specifically, I'm unconvinced that letting people "steal" our code really advances the cypherpunk goal of good crypto everywhere (GCE...a new TLA?). Proprietary implementations, or proprietary builds of free or public domain might well claim to be high quality implementations of well trusted algorithms. But without access to the source, how do we know? What if someone makes an RPM of PGP, for example, with a "feature" to fire your keys off to Big Brother for "backup" and/or "safe keeping"? -- Matt Curtin cmcurtin@interhack.net http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/