Restrictions / Commercial Use?

[David Shaw]

On Sun, Mar 31, 2002 at 02:02:58PM -0600, Greg Strong wrote:
> Are there any restrictions on using GnuPG for commercial use?  
> 
> GnuPG says at http://www.gnupg.org/ that "GnuPG is a complete and free 
> replacement for PGP. Because it does not use the patented IDEA 
> algorithm, it can be used without any restrictions."  

This is correct.  Use it commercially, use it non-commercially, use it
for whatever you like.  Have fun.

However, if you want to use the IDEA cipher then the situation changes
a little.  The IDEA cipher is patented by a Swiss company called Ascom
Systec Ltd.  They require a licence for commercial use.

GnuPG does not come with IDEA, despite what people may have added to
their own copies of the distribution.  You don't even need IDEA unless
you are trying to communicate with a user who uses certain versions of
PGP 2.  Since the current version of PGP is 7, it's been a few years
since PGP 2...

David

-- 
   David Shaw  |  dshaw@jabberwocky.com  |  WWW http://www.jabberwocky.com/
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
   "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX.
      We don't believe this to be a coincidence." - Jeremy S. Anderson