GnuPG 1.1.90 released

[Werner Koch]

On Mon, 29 Jul 2002 16:40:37 +0800, Enzo Michelangeli said:

> But exactly why should statically linking IDEA be different from that?

IDEA is not worldwide patented ; e.g. you can use it in Denmark
legally without a licenses.

> "--enable-stinking-patented-idea-for-which-i-should-pay-a-license", and
> everything will be as legal and ethical as providing, separately, a loadable

Right.  However: The GPL does not allow to use a patented algorithm
(well, we have to restrict this to "well known as patented") and thus
we can't use IDEA with GPL.  The loophole we use is to distribute IDEA
separately under a GPL compatible but not patent useage restricting
license.  

So a user can use gpg and idea togethert as long as he does not
distrinute the comined work.  The way Debian handles this in non-free
is somewhat questionable as they distribute it together (idea.c is as
a combined work affected by the GPL rules). 

Whether this is done by dynamically linking os static linking doesn't
matter.  Dropping dynamic linking support would indeed be inconvenient
for Windows user because usualy are not able to compile GnuPG
theirself and a binary distribution would be illegal.  

We have to think whether we should have an exception for the Windows
version - but then only to use IDEA in the countries where the patent
is not valid.  GNU/Linux users should have enough knowledge to build
GnuPG for themself.


Salam-Shalom,

   Werner