Re: linux-ipsec: export law questions

From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart(at)pobox.com>
Date: Tue Jan 19 1999 - 13:59:18 EST

At 06:12 PM 1/18/99 +0000, Pete Popov wrote:
>Regarding the Linux FreeS/WAN project, can US citizens help contribute code and,

No - absolutely no US citizens can contribute code to FreeS/WAN. That would make the code unclean from a US export perspective, which would make it difficult for people to use. This is written outside the US by non-Yankees, distributed from outside the US, though people in US territory can import it.

On the other hand, while you can't fix bugs or suggest fixes, testing code and complaining about things that are broken appears to be ok. Hugh and John and John's lawyers can probably get more precise about that.

>Suppose someone starts a similar project in the US and wants to

There are a lot of people who think that the GPL license wouldn't permit this sort of nationalist discrimination :-) but it's an arguable issue.
What is definite is that anybody you give the binaries to needs to be able to get the source as well, either from you or from some other distribution point.

				Thanks! 
					Bill

Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639 Received on Tue Jan 19 14:48:48 1999