1997-11-17 - Re: PGPsdk is now free for non-commercial use

Header Data

From: Alan Olsen <alan@clueserver.org>
To: Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
Message Hash: 26e3fb8c369e636d4c4a1a7c484727285835bbd896ef0b53c317891eae5fe189
Message ID: <199711170552.VAA14639@www.ctrl-alt-del.com>
Reply To: <199711170358.TAA14061@www.ctrl-alt-del.com>
UTC Datetime: 1997-11-17 05:48:22 UTC
Raw Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 13:48:22 +0800

Raw message

From: Alan Olsen <alan@clueserver.org>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 1997 13:48:22 +0800
To: Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: PGPsdk is now free for non-commercial use
In-Reply-To: <199711170358.TAA14061@www.ctrl-alt-del.com>
Message-ID: <199711170552.VAA14639@www.ctrl-alt-del.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 08:01 PM 11/16/97 -0800, Lucky Green wrote:
>At 07:47 PM 11/16/97 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:
>>>From what I have read of the license it is against the license agreement to
>>ship the libraries on a CD of shareware products for which a price is
>charged.
>
>o There is typically an exemption in license agreements for distribution of
>software that charges nominal media costs. If PGP overlooked this, it can
>be added trivially. No need to get excited about it.

I know that, you know that, but do the lawyers know that?

Shareware and freeware share the same distribution channels, so it is a
problem for freeware until the licence gets upgraded.

>o The current license agreement for the PGPsdk is for use freeware only.
>The license agreement for shareware has not yet been made public (=been
>written).

I know that.

I just find the current versions on the licence agreement to be not well
thought out.  I expect similar problems to be found in the shareware licence.

By version 2.x of the license agreement, I expect it to be something that
will not make problems for freeware/shareware developers.

[Note: I am not claiming consipracy or illwill by PGP in this matter.  This
stuff just reads like the lawyers had not quite enough understanding of the
issues when they wrote this.  Could be worse, Borland has had some pretty
unworkable license restrictions.  And I won't even get into Microsoft...]
---
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