From: futplex@pseudonym.com (Futplex)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 95 12:48:28 PDT
To: mix-l@jpunix.com (Mixmaster Mailing List)
Subject: Commercial Mixmaster (was Re: Mixmaster status)
In-Reply-To: <ac7edf5800021004fd74@[137.110.24.250]>
Message-ID: <9509151948.AA27938@cs.umass.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Anonymous writes:
# Consider this scenario ...  Mixmaster get's bought by the Acme
# Crypto Company of Ft. Meade, MD.  They "improve" it, and offer a new
# version.  It's even FREE (for non-commerical use)!  But their
# "improvements" make it incompatible with previous versions, and so
# you have to upgrade.  The new "commercial" version comes with no
# SOURCE CODE, of course...

Lance Cottrell writes:
> 4) There will always be a free version of the client with source code.
>
> While I have not discussed it, I can not imagine that there would not also
> be a free version of the server code (with source). Without remailers what
> is the point of the client software?

Beyond taking Lance on his PGP-signed-word, which I'm strongly inclined to do,
I suspect he may not have much legal leeway in this regard.

With the caveat that I Am Not A Lawyer, it seems to me that the GNU General
Public License (Version 1 from 1989, Mix/GNU.license in the Mixmaster .tar or 
http://hopf.math.nwu.edu/docs/Gnu_License), which covers all extant 
distributions of Mixmaster, has some significant implications for any
commercial development of Mixmaster. It's applicable to "the Program or any 
derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the
Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or
translated into another language". 

The GNU GPL specifies that:
	
 	2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of
	it, and copy and distribute such modifications under the terms of 
	Paragraph 1 above, provided that you also do the following:
	[...]
	b) cause the whole of any work that you distribute or publish, that
    	in whole or in part contains the Program or any part thereof, either
    	with or without modifications, to be licensed at no charge to all
    	third parties under the terms of this General Public License (except
    	that you may choose to grant warranty protection to some or all
    	third parties, at your option).

and that:

	3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a portion or 
	derivative of it, under Paragraph 2) in object code or executable 
	form under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above provided that you 
	also do one of the following:
 	a) accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
    	source code, [...] or,
	b) accompany it with a written offer, [...] to give any third party 
	free (except for a nominal charge for the cost of distribution) a 
	complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, [...]

So it looks to me as though Mixmaster source code will continue to be 
legally available, no matter what....

Better informed interpretations are enthusiastically solicited.
 
-Futplex <futplex@pseudonym.com>