On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Neil Moore wrote:
> Due to US export laws, crypto in the kernel would force:
> A. The kernel to be maintained outside the US.
> B. All US mirrors to deny downloads to people outside the US.
That's where OpenBSD has an advantage; their distribution point is in
Canada, which nicely nullifies most export restrictions. US coders can
work on it (because of trade agreements), and the Canadian distribution
point can redistribute to the world because Canada doesn't have
ass-backwards crypto laws like the US.
They've got an explaination of how that works (legally speaking) on their
web site at http://www.openbsd.org/ .
It's not quite so simple. Take a look at the link on the OpenBSD web
page itself. Re-exporting U.S. export controlled goods from Canada is
subject to a certain amount of ambiguity and peril. If OpenBSD has
folks in Canada who are willing to take that risk, more power to them
--- but if you're a Canadian citizen, read the section in:
http://insight.mcmaster.ca/org/efc/pages/doc/crypto-export.html
about the U.S. denying entry or arresting Canadian citizens who try to enter
the U.S. after re-exporting goods that originated from the U.S. which
would have been export controlled in the U.S.
Of course the U.S. government has been known to enforce U.S. laws on
foreign soils sending the U.E. Marines to forcibly extract someone whom
the U.S. government really didn't like, but I don't think Linux (even
with crypto added) is quite that important to them yet. :-)
- Ted
P.S. If you're in the U.S., and you don't like this, drop a letter to
your Congresscritters --- that's only way the U.S. export control laws
will change.
P.P.S. Let's take this discussion of linux-kernel, since it's really
off-topic.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu