Restrictions / Commercial Use?

[Werner Koch]

On Sun, 31 Mar 2002 14:02:58 CST, Greg Strong said:

> Are there any restrictions on using GnuPG for commercial use?  

No. 

> While the installation instructions for GPGshell at 

GPGShell is a proprietary software not related to GnuPG, the GPL or the
FSF.  It just happens that GPGShell uses GnuPG as a backend.  This is
similar to run the proprietary ORACLE DB on GNU/Linux.

> to use the following GPG-version. Please keep in mind that this file 
> contains a version with implemented IDEA-algorithm which is free only 
> for non-commercial use!"

By distributing a modified GnuPG version with the IDEA algorithm
included, the distributor violates the license terms of GnuPG (section
7 of the GNU GPL).  Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

> I've scanned the GNU General Public License (GPL) in plain text format 
> at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt.  I believe this license governs 
> the distribution of GnuPG.  I don't recall seeing any restrictions on 
> use meaning commercial versus non-commercial.

You are right.  The FSF actually encourages the commercial use of Free
Software - the "free" stands for freedom and not for price.

> The only thing I can see different is the fact that GPGshell 
> installation instructions reference a different file, 
> gnupg-w32-1.0.6.zip, than GnuPG, gnupg-w32-1.0.6-2.zip.

The -2 version fixes a potential security problem with the included
compression library (ZLIB).  The file  gnupg-w32-1.0.6-1.0.6-2.diff in
the same directory of the FTP server contains the changes in source form.

   Werner

-- 
Werner Koch                  Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit,   
FSF Europe                   dum habetur et non datur, nondum habetur,
Vice-Chancellor Germany      quomodo habenda est.        -- Augustinus