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Re: patent freedom & compatibility

1997-11-07 06:53:40
Just replying to the subject, rather than the specific message.

With regards to pgp 2.6 compatibility, I believe that only a MAY reference in
the spec (with appendices/references for formats), is required for it to be
widely implemented, user demand and market pressure will take care of that.
If there are really 4 million pgp 2.6 users out there, then most email
developers will be eager to service that market niche. 

If we leave it a MAY then issues of copyright & patents are upto the
implementors in their various countries, as it should be. And that would
leave us free to *quickly* draft a unencumbered clearly documented spec
with ONE MUST and ONE SHOULD. As a developer I dream of that, at the moment
implementing email security is a nightmare.

Too much time is being wasted on political issues & debates, for what I
thought was meant to be a purely technical spec.

--
Lindsay Mathieson
Black Paw Communications
        Using MailCat for Win32 Beta Vs 2.6.1.2, on November 7, 1997, in Win95 
4.0
        http://www.blackpaw.com/



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