khijol!erc@apple.com (Ed Carp) said:

I hate to jump into the fray, but according to Public Key Partners, if you use RSA for educational, (etc.) purposes, you are not infringing on their patent.

It has long been held that there is an exemption to 'patent infringment'

for educational or other "non-commercial" uses.

Hmm. I would love to interpret this as meaning that I can freely use their technology in freeware software that I write for and release to the net. However there would seem to be reason to doubt this. ;-) Any opinions on how much/how little one could get away with on such things? Would it make a difference if the piece of software were intended for a focused education/research area (say groupware research) rather than being highly general (as a mailer is)? I'm less familiar with patent exemptions than copyright exemptions, so this is all somewhat opaque to me. And there's always the old issue of whether someone will be motivated to sue you, and whether you want to spend time & money on defense, quite aside from the hypothetical legality or illegality that might eventually be established. Urk. Doug