Addressed to: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com> Paul Penrod <furballs@netcom.com> Cypherpunks <cypherpunks@toad.com> ** Reply to note from Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com> 06/22/96 01:20am -0700 = At 02:57 PM 6/21/96 GMT, attila <attila@primenet.com> wrote: = = > personally, I think RSA has been most generous in their = > licensing: a personal use license of the basic algorithm is free. = > How do you suppose PGP really exists? it's free! RSA has done = > more to advance cryptography with this policy than any other in many = > years. the political and public relations benefits to our rights = > to cryptography and the public relations bonanza for public = > awareness is not even estimable, let alone measurable. The Federal = > persecution of Phil Zimmerman was a PR bonanza and a rallying cry. = = One of the main reasons that PKP let people use RSAREF free was that, = mostly through PGP, people were already using it; this lets them both = control the market to the extent that they can as well as letting = free-software writers advance the state of the art and make commercial = companies and their markets aware that RSA is the algorithm to use. = absolutely. if you are being "bootlegged" on a basic conceptual patent by a class of users which are impossible to either regulate or litigate (individual users), might as well maximize your advantage --in this case, the combination of the privacy aware and the intense effort of the government to suppress 1,2,4, and 5 combined for a reward of public awareness which would be difficult to attain any other way, particularly for free --I seriously doubt that even saturation advertising time during superbowl would be effctive! (joe sixpack audience)! = > on the other hand, the Free Software group, despite the = > tremendous value to those of us who develop, does nothing to = > protect our basic freedoms, and place the issue before the U.S. = > (and world) forum. = = The League For Programming Freedom, closely intertwined with FSF, = has been lobbying against software patents for a long time. = Maybe it's a losing battle, but they've been one of the prominent = sets of good guys. And then there are heavy-duty GNU supporters, = like Cygnus Support (which makes its money developing and supporting = free software), one of the co-founders of which was John Gilmore.... = free knowledge is a state of mind. free software takes away the "American" work ethic incentive. when a nation state (or state or world, etc) decides to appropriate the work of a class of entreprenuers (say software developers), there will be no more creative productive results; few, if any, programmers will work 14-20 hours per day, 7 days a week for what could be several years unless they are: a) crazy (good possibility); b) deranged (more than a few whom I know fit this class) c) obsessed (goes with the turf) d) hoping to swing on the brass ring (not the gold ring). I never met or hired a "real old-style hacker" programmer who did not fit _ALL_ 4 of the above categories and was not obnoxious as well. It is the same difference which separates real hackers from programmers: a) what languages do hackers use? any, except they do not waste time on x86 b) where do you find hackers? in a (usually rented) place in the Valley (pick one) in a room littered with old newspapers and fast food bags, lit only by the glow of a CRT... c) what's the real difference between hackers and programmers? programmers code; hackers tweak! = But yes, software patents do mostly suck.... = that's the basic idea. the only useful patents are like those owned by RSA which protect a fundamental principal. The rest of softwware success is marketing and intimidating anyone who copies your basic ideas which are protected by intellectual property rights --often more valuable than a patent. The RSA saga was first published in Scientific America in Aug of 1977 --it's been a long, and expensive, road which may yet pan out before the basic patent expires in 2001 or so. attila -- Fuck off, Uncle Sam. Cyberspace is where democracy lives!