Z:gnu-www-ja-software-patents--bb9dcb-Then, one program got away. T/en

Then, one program got away. The program PGP, which initially was released as free software. Apparently, the patent holders by the time they got around to attacking, realized they might get too much bad publicity. So they imposed restrictions making it for non-commercial use only, which meant it couldn't catch on too much. So they greatly limited the use of Public Key Encryption for a decade or more. There was no way around that patent. There was nothing else you could do like that.