encrypted file integration into KDE

[Andreas Pour]

Martin Konold wrote:
> 
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> On Sunday 28 April 2002 12:10 am, Ingo Klöcker wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> > > Well, easily if the implementation is done in a country where stupid
> > > sw patents do not apply!
> >
> > Isn't Free Software supposed to be free on the whole world? Obviously an
> > implementation of IDEA can't be used for commercial purposes in the
> > below mentioned countries even if it was developed outside of these
> > countries.
> 
> You missunderstood copyright law. By putting a piece of code under the LGPL
> copyright the author grants you some rights. If you need additional rights in
> order to make the code useful for you it is your problem not the problem of
> the author.

Hi,

Well, the rights you are granted are a bit different than you note, and
while you may write this off as "technical" and "stupid", Section 11 of
the LGPL states:

| if a patent license would not permit royalty-free
| redistribution of the Library by all those who
| receive copies directly or indirectly through you,
| then the only way you could satisfy both it and
| this License would be to refrain entirely from
| distribution of the Library.

So if you cannot give me, here in the US, a royalty-free license to use
the software, the LGPL does not permit you to redistribute it.

The way around this is Section 12, if the author specifically notes the
countries with patent limitations and that it is OK to distribute the
program even thought it cannot be redistributed in the listed
countries.  How an author is to know what the list of these countries
might be, I don't know.  So e.g. if someone realeases a library under
the LGPL, and 3 years later a patent is issued in the US, unless the
author relicenses the LGPL with a US exception, you can no longer
redistribute the library anywhere in the world :-(.  So the smart way to
do it is to add a note to the LGPL license with which the software is
released to the effect that any country which has patent restrictions is
automatically excluded from the geographical distribution rights.  This
means the library (or program) can't be distributed in those countries,
but can be continued to be distributed in countries without the
limitation.

Anyway, that's how it reads to me, as a layman.

Ciao,

Dre