ietf-openpgp
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Re: Camellia for OpenPGP

2007-04-23 12:02:37

Mike Markowitz <markowitz(_at_)infoseccorp(_dot_)com> writes:

At 12:11 PM 4/23/2007, Simon Josefsson wrote:

Given what people have said about NTT's intentions in this area, it
may be worthwhile to pursue and ask them to provide a better patent
license that would guarantee that Camellia can be used freely.  But
that is a separate problem, and not related to OpenPGP.  Until there
is a good license available, I would be against anything more than a
informational reference in the OpenPGP document.

In this regard it might be worth noting this:

http://www.ntt.co.jp/news/news06e/0604/060413a.html

"Hereafter, however, in accordance with an agreement between NTT and
Mitsubishi,
Camellia essential patents can be used at no charge by any Camellia
user without
concluding such royalty-free licensing agreement hereafter."

So it appears that you don't need a license, somewhat like the situation
with IBM and DES.

Nice!  Is there a real patent license available, rather than news
items?  I think that before asking a lawyer to evaluate whether the
license is sufficient, I need something that at least looks like a
license instead of a news article.

It seems possible that this concern can be resolved, either by someone
finding an already existing real license from NTT/Mitsubishi, or if
they write a new license text based on the ideas expressed on their
web pages already.  If that happens, I think it would actually be a
good idea for OpenPGP to have a normative reference to Camellia!

/Simon

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