On Fri, Jul 16, 1999 at 01:55:06PM +0100, Sean Witham wrote:
> 
> 
> Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> >
> > As I believe you're aware, this is exactly the oversimplification of
> > the situation which my patent attorney suggested a court was highly
> > unlikely to agree with on _precisely_ this subject.
> > 
> > A.K.A. "well, we didn't want you to *use* that source code, it was just
> > to look at!"  We could easily lose a case of contributory infringement
> > that way.
> > 
> 
> So what about providing technical information of any other kind that
> could be used illegally ?

That's not the issue.  The issue relates specifically to the law of
"contributory infringement" of patents -- please note that I am not
a lawyer and ask one if you want a good explanation, or perhaps see
a book like Nolo Press's _Patent It Yourself_ -- where one can be
held liable for infringement for making a device which is specifically
designed to be adaptable so as to infringe a patent, though it does
not, as made and sold, directly infringe.

When someone else reconfigures and uses the product in a manner which
directly infringes, we can be held liable for our contribution to his
infringement.  At which point we have to hope that a judge falls for
our "well, we included a statement saying just to *look at* it, not to
*use* it, in our source distribution, and we meant it, really!" line.

Not a good position to be in.  I can't speak to OpenSSL's opinion
(and since they're basically not a U.S. entity, they have somewhat
less to worry about -- we're incorporated here, have assets which
could be taken, etc.) but our project doesn't want to be there, as far as
I know.

Thor