At Wed, 17 Nov 2004 08:50:07 +1300, cr wrote: > > On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 02:41, John Hasler wrote: > > cr writes: > > > In very general terms - as I understand it the restriction is the US ban > > > on the export of 'encryption software'. > > > > That was dropped years ago. > > > > > How Micro$oft get around it I don't know, maybe they've just got big > > > lawyers and lots of influence. > > > > They have to get licenses in advance of exporting crypto (though the > > licenses are trivially easy to get). > > > > > So, to avoid the spooks from throwing some Debian mirror's owner into > > > jail for 50,000 years for including some app. with encryption built in, > > > such apps are only carried on mirrors outside the US. > > > > Crypto has been in Main and carried on US mirrors for years. The only > > requirement now is that when a new crypto program is uploaded a copy of the > > source must be emailed to the Commerce Dept. > > > > I believe that the only things left in non-us are programs that infringe US > > patents. > > So I'm way out of date on that. I think that's why non-US got started > though? >
non-us got started for distributing encryption related software that according to us law couldn't be distributed from inside the us to people outside the us (the attempt to limit encrypted mail and such which makes work harder for the intelligence community to monitor web traffic). At some point they realized that the law wasn't effective and it was canceled AFAIK or at least severely modified, which made the non-us section irrelevant. It has nothing to do with patents or non-free software, just legal issues with encryption (like I said, ancient history by now). > cr > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > This Mail Was Scanned By Mail-seCure System > at the Tel-Aviv University CC. > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
