Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] snow3g dissector in violation of GPLv2+

[Joerg Mayer <jmayer@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 11:46:34AM +0000, Martin Mathieson wrote:
> I still don't know if the algorithms are covered by patents, and don't have
> more time to look into it today.  They seem to be saying that its access to
> the 'algorithm specifications' (which in this case includes a reference
> implementation) which is restricted.  So if we couldn't re-implement the
> algorithm without reading the spec, it wouldn't do us any good.
> 
> I used the reference implementation to test that I was correctly gathering
> the inputs and passing them to the f8/f9 functions. Again, I believe that
> interface is generic (a form of the same args described in non-restricted
> specifications, and passed to the one algorithm we can use).  Removing the
> calls to the f8/f9 functions wouldn't cause any variable-not-used warnings
> as they won't be compiled either without HAVE_SNOW3G being defined.
> 
> Assuming we can't include any implementation of snow-3g (I hope I'm wrong,
> and thanks for the offer, Jeorg), I'd like to leave it as it is, but with
> the #include removed, and maybe more information given in a comment. Anyone
> can get the code, and anyone working for an organisation that has paid the
> fee can use it.  Is it not OK to link GPL code with whatever you want, as
> long as you don't distribute it?  Checking in the code I did was more so
> that it would be easy for me to maintain a small diff and easily continue
> to contribute to the dissector, rather than give people an easy way to
> violate license agreements.
> 
> I will check in a minimal change described above for now, but will respect
> the consensus this doesn't go far enough.

Sounds good! In case it isn't patented: I can google for the document and
download it via the links. It doesn't look like the site(s) I found the
documents on are pirate sites (I send one URL earlier) and I didn't click
on any license agreement, so if you could provide me with an include file
(and ideally with a stub c file), I would try to do an implementation of
snow-3g. It would be up to you to test.

ciao
     Jörg

-- 
Joerg Mayer                                           <jmayer@xxxxxxxxx>
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that
works. Some say that should read Microsoft instead of technology.