Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 22:18:38 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: jcwells@u.washington.edu Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New bind not completely open source... why GPL is not always Message-ID: <199909142218.PAA23085@usr09.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9909122103360.9643-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu> from "Jason C. Wells" at Sep 12, 99 09:17:31 pm
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> Does it really not meet the OSD from opensource.org? Is DNSafe an addon > that sullies tho openness of the entire BIND package? This whole thing > seems to be a great way to plug something BINDish from the Gnu camp. > > I read slashdot a lot. When it comes to licensing I take it with two > tablespoons of soy sauce. > > Beside, read Ousterhout's commitment to free software. He states that if > he ever closed TCL then the free software community would start with the > last free version and continue development. BIND is also subject to this > threat. > > The scary part is that the NIH people are pushing their ground up > reimplementation, not for the sake of technology, but licensing. > > The B in BIND stands for Berkeley. If BIND ends up closed there is nothing > preventing *BSD from becoming the ersatz custodian of BIND. It is obvious to me that the reason for the license restriction is to obtain a special dispensation for RSA for the use of its US software patents and code licensed thereof in free software. It seems to me that the license restriction is the best outcome you could possibly have expected, in the face of RSA protecting their patent rights, yet allowing DNSSEC and DNSSIG to go forward. It also seems to me that the interface restrictionis the best you could hope for in terms of removing that restriction when the RSA patents expire, and the licensed code replaced with code from a different source, without the RSA license imposed restrictions. People not subject to the RSA patents should feel free to replace the code with free implementations of the RSA patents. Those of us in the US, Canada, and elsewhere, would not have access to this _necessary_ security enhancement to BIND were it not for the license. Note that any GNU distribution that attempts to replace the code and distribute it in the US will face similar patent restrictions, so any Linux distribution that expects to be able to sell into the US should be forewarned that all the sabre-rattling in the world won't break those patents, and won't break those licenses granted while the patent was in force on code written by RSA. Note that it's common to obtain a process patent, and then obtain a license whise term is far in duration of the patent for the embodied process, whether we are talking about process patents on software, or those on chemical engineering, etc.. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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