Wassenaar followup

brian moore bem at cmc.net
Fri Dec 11 09:58:07 CET 1998


On Fri, Dec 11, 1998 at 02:57:37PM +0100, Fabio Coatti wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 11, 1998 at 02:15:19PM +0100, Thomas Roessler wrote:
> 
> > > domain" then there will be no restrictions, but GPL soft can be considered 
> > > "public domain"?
> > 
> > "Public Domain" has a special meaning in the context of the wassenaar
> > agreement.  See the definition of terms under
> > http://www.fitug.de/news/wa/Def.html. 
> 
> 
> Man many thanks... I've missed the "definitions" chapter, damn "Transfer
> interrupted" :-)
> 
> So I think that GPLed soft if fully qualified PD program in
> Wass. Agreement. 
> Very good news.

Well, it would be good news if the US gov't plans on interpreting it
the way it appears to be written and not the way they told the press
and if the US passed laws (or repealed existing ones) to comply.  (Well,
good news for those of us in the US anyway....)

>From that definition, even PGP itself is acceptable for export: the
usage seems to be pretty much the same as in ITAR, where "public domain"
means "generally available to the public such as at libraries, trade
shows, etc" as differentiated from "proprietary".

-- 
Brian Moore                       | "The Zen nature of a spammer resembles
      Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker     |  a cockroach, except that the cockroach
      Usenet Vandal               |  is higher up on the evolutionary chain."
      Netscum, Bane of Elves.                 Peter Olson, Delphi Postmaster




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