Debian gnupg-idea package
-------------------------

This is the Debian package of the IDEA algorithm module, from
the GNU Privacy Guard contrib archive.


Basic usage
-----------

If you are sure it is legal for you to use IDEA you can add
  load-extension idea
to your ~/.gnupg/options file.


IDEA patent
-----------

IDEA has a horrible software patent on it that is not scheduled to run out
any time soon.

where   number       application  issued       expiration
USA     5'214'703    1991-05-16   1993-05-25   2010-05-25
Europe  0482154      1991-05-16   1993-06-30   2011-05-16
Japan   508119/1991  1991-05-16   2001-08-31   ????-??-??
(The european patent only covers Austria, France, Germany, Italy, The
Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and The United Kingdom.)

The IDEA patent license can be aquired without cost for "non-commercial" use.
The conditions are very unclear and don't seem to be constant and currently
require registration. Details may be found on  http://www.ascom.ch/ or
http://www.mediacrypt.com/.


Further reading
---------------

Why not to use IDEA:
http://www.gnupg.org/why-not-idea.html

Replacing PGP 2.x with GnuPG:
http://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/pgp2x.html

Why software patents are bad for society:
http://www.noepatents.org/
