Re: SHA, MD, and openssl

[Richard Stallman]

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    The Major Component here is not the Linux kernel; it's cryptographic
    services, which these days are a major essential component of many
    operating systems, including common GNU/Linux distributions.

I don't think "cryptographic services" is a system component.
It is a category of uses of software, not even a collection
of programs, let alone a single component.

    > I don't think it satisfies (b) either.

    I don't see why not, for the crypto hash functions we're talking
    about.  MD5, SHA256, etc. are all interfaces that are official
    standards defined by recognized standards bodies, and implementations
    for them are available to the public in source code form.

MD5 and SHA256 are not interfaces.  They are algorithms.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
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