On Wed, 6 Sep 2000, David Maxwell wrote:

> public domain != amnesty.
> 
> If you break a law and the law is subsequently changed, you may still
> face charges for your transgression, correct?

Absolutely!

The question is, do we have to wait until September 20th to
incorporate (formerly) RSA patented algorithms in the source base or
to offer binaries built from those sources, and the answer is clearly,
"No." Conversely, if NetBSD had demonstratably violated the patent in
the past, waiting until September 20th to take further action wouldn't
alleviate the transgression, not even a little.

The announcement, by the way, didn't surprise me one bit. Admire the
cleverness of it. RSA Inc. has benefited financially from a
controversial and egrerious patent for years, but now that they don't
lose one dollar in doing so, they embrace the cause of "the
advancement of the technology"!