Cryptographic Software in Debian's Main Archive

Cine writes: "James Troup and Sam Hartman recently sent a note to all debian mirror maintainers, to inform them about the current situation and future plans. Sometime after March 8th, crypto software like OpenSSH, SSL support, and many other enhancements will be integrated into the debian main archive. This is in accordance to legal advice the Debian project received."

Re:no real effect

[Xtifr]

Very nearly true. The main end-user effect will be on the bandwidth-challenged, who will find ssh and SSL-enabled versions of mozilla, galeon, mutt, evolution, and ghod knows what else on their CDs in the future. These people will end up saving a lot of download time (and possibly money if they pay by the minute for being online).

The flip-side of this is that CD vendors in the US might be slightly more reluctant to jump through the hoops necessary to distribute Debian on CD. However, the same hoops are going to be required for any other distros that include non-crippled SSL-enabled apps and the like, so I don't imagine this is going to be a major problem.

Re:IP address based restrictions

[Waffle Iron]

I sleep better at night knowing that through the tireless diligence of webmasters all over the world, running millions of reverse IP lookups every day, there is probably not a single copy of ssh available in any of those countries. Kudos to all those who participate in this grand, impenetrable virtual fortress.

This achievement is a real testament to the vision and wisdom of our leaders.