Can mcrypt be stripped/legalized a similar way as openssl is done?

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

I don't know that we need a lawyer to answer this question.  Lawyers don't 
have domain knowledge.  You guys do.

Therefore, if you believe that your analysis of the patent issues is
correct, in which you assert that everything in libmcrypt is either
already cleared for openssl or patent-free, then we should be fine.

--g

_____________________  ____________________________________________
  Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have
 Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent.  the
             Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the 
                     ] [ dumb.  --mcluhan

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005, Tom 'spot' Callaway wrote:

> On Thu, 2005-09-22 at 20:12 +0400, Dmitry Butskoy wrote:
> > The mcrypt package itself looks similar to, for example, openssl. Both
> > have illegal things in their upstream. To distribute openssl, Fedora
> > deletes all the problem code from it (and makes an own tarball).
> >   Can mcrypt be distributed the same way? In other words, whether 
> > "accurately cleared mcrypt" can be added to Fedora Extras? 
> 
> You know, we might not even need to do this. The items we removed from
> openssl (IDEA, MDC2, RC-5) aren't present in libmcrypt.
> 
> Libmcrypt has:
> 
> 3-way: clear of patents 
> 3DES: included in openssl
> Arc Four: clear of patents, in the linux kernel
> Blowfish: included in openssl
> Cast-128: included in openssl
> Cast-256: included in openssl
> DES: included in openssl
> Enigma: A one-rotor version of german enigma cipher, clear of patents
> GOST: clear of patents
> LOKI97: clear of patents
> RC-2: included in openssl
> Rijndael-128: (AES) in openssl
> Rijndael-192: (AES) in openssl
> Rijndael-256: (AES) in openssl
> Safer+: clear of patents
> Safer-sk64: clear of patents
> Safer-sk128: clear of patents
> Serpent: AES variant, clear of patents, in the linux kernel
> Twofish: AES varient, clear of patents, in the linux kernel
> Wake: clear of patents
> Xtea: clear of patents, in the linux kernel
> 
> US export restrictions should be the same for mcrypt as they are for
> openssl, so I think we're fine. Of course, IANAL.
>
> Greg, any chance we could get an answer back from legal before 2046?
> 
> ~spot
> -- 
> Tom "spot" Callaway: Red Hat Senior Sales Engineer || GPG ID: 93054260
> Fedora Extras Steering Committee Member (RPM Standards and Practices)
> Aurora Linux Project Leader: http://auroralinux.org
> Lemurs, llamas, and sparcs, oh my!
>