From: Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@stud.uni-muenchen.de>
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 08:18:24 +0800
To: coderpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: propose: `cypherpunks license' (Re: Wanted: Twofish source co	de)
In-Reply-To: <896C7C3540C3D111AB9F00805FA78CE2013F8468@MSX11002>
Message-ID: <36137FFC.E0A860AB@stud.uni-muenchen.de>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Brown, R Ken wrote:
> 
> I suspect there are a lot of people who would have moral problems with
> breaking someone else's software copyright but wouldn't give a dam about
> breaking a software patent. An algorithm is an idea, and how can anyone own
> an idea? (I'm talking morals here, not law - intersecting universes of
> discourse, but not identical ones :-)

But sadly in matters of law there are software patents and particularly
in cryptography. One may have different opinions on crypto patents
and endlessly debate on them. My personal opinion is that the
benefits of crypto patents do not outweigh their negative impacts
on the development and use of cryptography especially in view of 
the fact that a number of governments intend to suppress civilian 
usage of strong crypto with all means that they can think of.

I think that claiming copyright is a good idea, since one retains
some kind of control over the stuff that one creates. One can then 
say that copying is allowed for certain usages but disallowed in 
others. (As far as I know copying some pages from a book, but not
the whole, for scientific purposes is free generally.) 

M. K. Shen