🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan4.030425.7578@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>We were talking about what's possible. Phil should read the munitions
>act some day.

I have, at length. (Well, actually the ITARs, which are authorized by
the Munitions Act).  I have also consulted an attorney who specializes
in export control issues.  The rules are, at best, deeply ambiguous
when it comes to freely available public domain software. However,
chances are also very good that any attempt to apply them to such a
case would be tossed out of court. (Why do you think that no such case
has ever been brought?)

The ITAR writers clearly never envisioned that software would be
freely given away. The assumption was that software, especially source
code, would be proprietary. Like the detailed plans to, say, the
avionics of an F-15, which are not available at my local Comp USA
store or by anonymous FTP over the net. But crypto software *is*
freely available from these places, and from quite a few worldwide
publications (a list of which I posted here recently).

Perhaps David Sternlight should read the First Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States some day.

>Phil seems to think that calling attention to the facts makes one
>a right-wing Republican. He is way off base.

Perhaps I am. The polical spectrum goes much further than "right-wing
Republican"...

Phil