Re: Elliptic-Curve Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange draft

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA@localhost>]

> Sun has contributed an ECC implementation to the OpenSSL project, and
> has filed some patent applications related to elliptic curve
> cryptography, but has explicitly indicated in the ECC code it
> contributed to the OpenSSL project that "Sun does not intend to
> assert its patent rights associated with the code that was delivered
> to the OpenSSL project."

This is notable more for what it does not say than for what it does
say.

In particular, it does not say that Sun will not use its patents, if
any, against similar code written by others (which locks everyone into
Sun's code's license) or against modified versions of Sun's code.

In fact, it does not say that Sun will not use its patents against
users of its own contributions in the future, only that it currently
does not intend to do so: it is not a commitment to anything.

If Sun really does want to DTRT with their patent, let them give a
royalty-free, sublicenseable license in perpetuity to, oh, say, Eric
Raymond, maybe, or Alan Cox, or someone else suitably trusted by the
open-source world.  Heck, let it give out half a dozen such licenses.

That is, let them _commit_ themselves.  Unless and until they do
something legally binding, I believe that statements of intent and so
forth are all very pretty-sounding, but cannot be trusted: normal
behaviour for corporations is what would be considered psychopathic for
an individual, and in particular, corporations' promises cannot be
trusted unless they are legally binding - and not always even then, but
that's about as strong as we'll get.

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