"more money than brains?"
Uu> From: cdodhner@indirect.com ("Christian D. Odhner")
ViaCrypt PGP will be available in the USA and Canada, for an introductory price of $100...for a single user ^^^^^^ Uu> Ok, I just spoke with Dave somebody at viacrypt, and he told me that Uu> the ViaCrypt PGP would be based on PGP 2.3a, and the only code changed Uu> would be the lines implementing rsa itself. ... Uu> improvements were made to ViaCrypt PGP, the same improvements would be Uu> made to the freeware version. I was thinking that if a bunch of us Uu> cypherpunks wanted copys we could order them...
Only one question: WHY? If PGP is freeware for noncommercial single
users, why on earth would anyone wish to drop $100 +/- for single-user
rights to a virtually identical program?
The mind boggles. I know that the principal Cypherpunks are rich, but
I'm sure they could find more worthy charities than ViaCrypt...like
getting me a new modem, for example...
*********************************************************************
*
M. Stirner:
Only one question: WHY? If PGP is freeware for noncommercial single users, why on earth would anyone wish to drop $100 +/- for single-user rights to a virtually identical program?
There are several business proposals floating around the cypherpunks community that would require commercial licenses. I encourage the various crypto-entrepreneurs elaborate if they wish. Some of the proposals are quite interesting and illuminating. There's a strong habit of keeping business ideas "trade secret", which can be a bad idea, since (a) many of the ideas are obvious; trade secrets only work for subtle but important technological bottlenecks known to a small group of mutually trustworthy people, and (b) many of the ideas need to debugged by a wide variety of crackers and experts before they will provid good privacy. Trade secrets also inhibit the progress of the cypherpunks agenda, but that's a judgement call; I myself dont' feel morally bound to Reveal All for the sake of the Movement. But, "I'll post mine if you post yours". Nick Szabo szabo@netcom.com
M. Stirner:
Only one question: WHY? If PGP is freeware for noncommercial single users, why on earth would anyone wish to drop $100 +/- for single-user rights to a virtually identical program?
Well, I've had dealings with a couple of business clients who refuse to use freeware PGP it because of 'the shaky legal ground'. We explained that as a government agency, we can use PGP legally, and because (in each case) the business already had rights to use RSA for their own purposes, there was no problem. They said if they could buy it, that'd make it a lot easier to use. (These same businesses refuse to distribute FSF/GNU code for similarly vague legal reasons.)
participants (3)
-
jet＠netcom.com -
M..Stirner＠f28.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG -
szabo＠netcom.com