Re: PGPsdk is now free for non-commercial use

At 06:53 PM 11/16/97 -0800, Lucky Green wrote:
>
>At 06:25 PM 11/16/97 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote:
>>I'm pleased to see PGP Inc. permitting development of freeware,
>>but at leased from a first reading of the license, 
>>it's a _really_ restrictive definition of "freeware" - 
>>not only does the software have to be free, but it can only be used 
>>in extremely restrictively non-commercial activities.
>
>The idea is simple: you make money from software that costs the authors
>lots of money to develop or use their software in a business environment
>(=to make money), you have to pay the people that spent time, effort, and,
>yes, money, on making it happen.
>
>Sounds reasonable to me.

I can see where they want to make a profit, but the licence makes the
software virtually undistributable by normal shareware channels.  

>From what I have read of the license it is against the license agreement to
ship the libraries on a CD of shareware products for which a price is charged.

If I were to create a program using the libraries and upload them to Simtel
or one of the other big archives, it could not be distributed on a Simtel
CD-ROM that someone was charging money for.  (Ignoring the usual export
issues.)

I see this as a big problem.

---
|              "That'll make it hot for them!" - Guy Grand               |
|"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer:         |
| mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!"  | Ignore the man      |
|`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key  | behind the keyboard.|
|         http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/       |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|

At 08:01 PM 11/16/97 -0800, Lucky Green wrote:
>At 07:47 PM 11/16/97 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:
>>>From what I have read of the license it is against the license agreement to
>>ship the libraries on a CD of shareware products for which a price is
>charged.
>
>o There is typically an exemption in license agreements for distribution of
>software that charges nominal media costs. If PGP overlooked this, it can
>be added trivially. No need to get excited about it.

I know that, you know that, but do the lawyers know that?

Shareware and freeware share the same distribution channels, so it is a
problem for freeware until the licence gets upgraded.

>o The current license agreement for the PGPsdk is for use freeware only.
>The license agreement for shareware has not yet been made public (=been
>written).

I know that.

I just find the current versions on the licence agreement to be not well
thought out.  I expect similar problems to be found in the shareware licence.

By version 2.x of the license agreement, I expect it to be something that
will not make problems for freeware/shareware developers.

[Note: I am not claiming consipracy or illwill by PGP in this matter.  This
stuff just reads like the lawyers had not quite enough understanding of the
issues when they wrote this.  Could be worse, Borland has had some pretty
unworkable license restrictions.  And I won't even get into Microsoft...]
---
|              "That'll make it hot for them!" - Guy Grand               |
|"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer:         |
| mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!"  | Ignore the man      |
|`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key  | behind the keyboard.|
|         http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/       |alan@ctrl-alt-del.com|

At 08:01 PM 11/16/1997 -0800, Lucky Green wrote:
>At 07:47 PM 11/16/97 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:
>>>From what I have read of the license it is against the license 
>>agreement to ship the libraries on a CD of shareware products 
>>for which a price is charged.

>o There is typically an exemption in license agreements for distribution of
>software that charges nominal media costs. If PGP overlooked this, it can
>be added trivially. No need to get excited about it.

I assume it was deliberate - it goes out of its way to say that you
can't use it to generate revenues, directly or indirectly,
and even including it on a disk of freeware that you sell
would appear to count, as would providing the free widget for
free download on a web page with commercial advertising banners.

It's far more restrictive than the previous PGP policies,
and not being able to use it in my office building is even more
annoying than not being able to use it to encrypt work email.

>o The current license agreement for the PGPsdk is for use freeware only.
>The license agreement for shareware has not yet been made public (=been
>written).

I'm not bothered by the freeware permissions not applying to shareware;
it would be nice if they negotiate a low enough price for shareware
authors to use, but if you're going to make money off their code,
I don't mind if PGP wants their cut.  
				Thanks! 
					Bill
Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF  3C85 B884 0ABE 4639