On Wed, Jun 14, 2006 at 09:54:02AM -0500, L. V. Lammert wrote: | If a companies' lawyers tell them to restrict documentation download to | valid organizations, that is well within their purvuew as technology | exporters. It's far more productive to be concerned with the terms OF the | license.
So what if one of the driver writers for one of the open source operating systems were to design a set of open standards for a hardware/software interface for chipsets in this class. Then what if a chipset maker were to actually use those open standards that are already published and in the hands of developers and sophisticated users all over the world, so that their chips can work in all the open source systems. Just how much real difference exists between releasing the _interface_ specifications (which could be derived easily from the open source drivers, anyway, no matter what their origin) and using interface specifications that are already widely public? There's no difference in any of the issues the US law is trying to address. It wants to be sure certain rogue nations and terrorists do not have the ability to use strong encryption. If Theo were to sign his soul away to get these specifications, anyone who manages to get the chips are going to be able to use them by just running OpenBSD or copying the driver from it. That's about as bad as it gets. It isn't any worse if the interface specs are truly open. Terrorist wanting to use these chips, if they can get any, would likely just use OpenBSD or some other OS the drivers are available for. To stop the terrorists from being able to use them, stop them from having the chips themselves (or the products the chips are in), and stop the design of the chips from being released (not something Hifn would do in any case). This sillyness is like trying to prevent terrorist from having electricity by not disclosing to them what the spacing between the prongs on electric plugs is. It has absolutely nothing to do with it, and reeks of analysis by a lawyer more interested in making it to the first tee by 3 PM.
