Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
United States

Ask Slashdot: How Exportable is Linux? 300

Posted by Cliff from the crossing-political-lines dept.
Stano sent in a really good question. He asks: "The Austrian company I work for develops commercial software and there exists a Linux port too. Now we have an opportunity to get a customer in Iran. There exists an American regulation (that Austria was forced to respect) that only software with max. 10% of American code can be exported to this country. Our software is OK in this respect (we have an export permit) but how about a Linux distribution? Is all FSF code "American", regardles of who originally wrote it? How about the Linux kernel? Who breaks the regulations if the customer himself downloads some American/German/whatever distribution?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Ask Slashdot: How Exportable is Linux? More

Ask Slashdot: How Exportable is Linux?

Comments Filter:

  • Do so at your own peril. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Gov't likes to make lots of things legal, but seldom says that something is explicitly permitted. And especially when dealing with places like Iran, Iraq, Libya, and such, you will only gain the intense scrutiny of gov't officials who will try to figure out what your 'real' business with these unfriendly nations is. In short, nothing but trouble. Unless your profit margin is expected to be really high, I'd say it's not worth the legal agony. And if it turns out that your Linux system you sold to Syria was used to guide a small missile to its target or to cooridinate simultaneous explosions all over embassys in Africa, you will likely be sitting naked under a spotlight explaining how you aren't supporting terrorism to gov't officials with really wide legal latitudes to clamp down on terrorists. Stay away. Stay far away.

  • If we export MICROSOFT software to Iran... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...is that a hostile act?

  • More than 10% (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    More than 10% of the code in most distributions is written by the FSF, which is pretty much all-American. Much of the other code is as well. I don't think you'll be able to squeeze in under 10%. Even if you can, the more important question is not "are we within the law" but "will we get sued." If the US chooses to sue, even if you are legally correct, you'll be bogged down in court of a long time, and you'll loose a lot of money on the trial. If you are breaking the law but the US doesn't sue, you're fine. I don't know what the US's policy is here.

    However, you could distribute your product seperately from the main OS, and Iran shouldn't have a problem getting a copy of Red Hat or Debian from some country not bound by US law.

    To the fools advocating SuSE, claiming Linux is Finnish and what not: Stop it. More of the OS was developed by GNU/FSF than is in the kernel. Linus himself just wrote about 5% of the code in the current kernel. Huge portions of the OS (XFree86, Apache, etc.) are US-centric. That holds true for ANY distribution.

    - pmitros (on almost no sleep)

  • Thats Iranic! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Last time I checked the USA doesn't tell its citizens to go around and bomb passenger airlines"

    Just a few years ago US shot down an Iranian passenger Airliner killing around 200 Iranians, claiming that it looked like a fighter jet, I think that counts as shooting down a passenger airline, becuase no matter how much the US lies a passenger jet can never look like a fighter jet, not even on the sophisticated radars employeed by the US. You need to recheck your facts, if you had any in your post.

  • Re:My personal plea... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    These comments I see here about the USA are very distrurbing. I agree wholeheartedly that the US government regulations on crypto and general export are absurd, and I, as well as thousands of other net users, fight by letter writing campaigns to senators and congresspeople and daily attempts to educate friends and coworkers about the benefits of free exchange and export. But just because our government has some absurd regulations that you (and I) don't like, does not make us a terrorist supporting nation like Iran. Now admittedly, Iran is changing and becoming more free and open. But in the past, the Islamic fundamentalist regime supported cowardly terrorist bombing of selected civilian targets to further dispicable religious and political ends. This is simply NOT akin to attacking the Serbs, who are committing genocide and forced emigration on the Albanian people, and thereby attempting to destabilize their neighboring countries and promote their own despotic, unfree, nondemocratic regime. This region is HIGHLY unstable, and in the past has played a key role in destabilizing other European countries, as in World War I. The fact is, some civilian targets have been mistakenly hit, which is unavoidable but unfortunate in a military operation of this scale. The US government, say what you will about it, has no personal grudge against innocent civilians in Serbia or elsewhere. And it is a difficult thing indeed to use force on the government of a country without harming its civilian population as well. The US is not a terrorist regime: we are attempting, to the best of our ability within our constraints to prevent a dangerous destabilization of Europe, and we are doing so in a joint effort with European nations, most of whom now support the operations in Yugoslavia even more strongly than does the US (although it took them a while to realize that they supported it, while they wasted everyone's time complaining about the "Imperialist" forces of the US). GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS: the US is not an Imperialist power. The US government does not want to colonize Serbia, nor to make money by exploiting the Serbian people, nor any such thing which would be reminiscent of Imperialism. We are looking out for our best interests, our allies in Europe's best interests, and the interests of innocent civilians (to the extent that we can).

  • Re:My personal plea... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    > Ummm. Last time I checked the USA doesn't tell its citizens to go around and bomb passenger airlines.

    Nope, the army just bombs:
    Civilian media, markets, hospitals, passenger trains, refugee convoys, passenger buses, graveyards, appartment blocks, other peoples embassasies...

    Anything I've left out?

  • Re:So why not move to Iran then Alan (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    So the Iranian government is evil, therefore it is wrong for Iranians to use Linux?
    Explain this logic to me, please.

  • Re:I hope it's countryless (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Easier said than done. Suppose all the border rest removed, would you accept the sudden surge of immigrants from the poorer countries to Canada. Suppose only half percent of population of china planned to come to Canada, would you accept 6 million people in short period of time. The border restrictions are to separate the "haves" and "have nots" and maintain the status quo. I feel that many people who maintain such views do not think of the consequence of "one fine day removing the border restrictions". I am of the view that there should be no border restriction. But I cannot think of a way to remove it without the ensuing chaos which might follow. Perhaps there is a way. I dont expect to see it happening in my lifetime though.

    By mistake, I submitted a partially written post and I did not review it. I hope of of the moderators remove it

  • Re:My personal plea... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ummm. Last time I checked the USA doesn't tell its citizens to go around and bomb passenger airlines. I can understand how a lot of people can be jealous of the USA though since it is a common human trait to be jealous of a more successful person or entity.. take Microsoft for example. Why does everyone hate Bill Gates? If any of you were in his position you'd be doing EXACTLY the same thing. I'm getting sick of the low-life people and countries of this world badgering the successful people and countries in this world with any kind of lie they can come up with to support their groundless idiotic arguments.

  • Re:My personal plea... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ohhhh GAG! Sombody pass the barf bag!

    I don't know of a single nation on earth which doesn't comit and justify some sort of "terroristic" act. The USA included. Terrorism - by definition it's impossible for state-sponsored war machines to comit terrorist acts. If we are to stop trade with nations because of their politics, then (imho) we can't rightly trade with any nation. We're all scum. Like it or not.

    On the other hand, why deny the Iranian public a very good product? The majority of them, like the majority of Americans, aren't directly responsible for the actions of their leadership. And we're not talking about exporting Linux to Iran for the sole purpose of supporting Anti-american activities. Sorry, but I don't by the rhetoric behind sanctions. It's nothing short of starving the people of a foriegn land to acheive your own political goals. Sanctions hurt the lay people more than their governing bodies (consider Iraq). Targeting civilians is a hallmark of a terrorist action.

  • Re:Does it matter? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually, Nike shoes are made by extremely poor women in Indonesia. Last I heard, one less Michael Jordan commercial would bring them out of poverty. Of course, he is retired now...

    Some facts about Nike in Indonesia:
    Wages used to be $2.46 per day. During the 1998 economic collapse, they fell to 70 cents per day. According to the Indonesian human rights groups, a family subsistence wage is at least $4 per day.
    Weight loss to due malnutrition is common among Nike production workers.
    Police routinely meet organizing attempts with violence. Union leader Muchtar Pakpahan is in and out of jail, facing a possible death sentence. Yet workers repeatedly go on strike, because they cannot meet their most basic needs with the money they make.

  • My personal plea... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:32AM (#1895862)
    Regardless of whether there are legal export restricions, please carefully consider your decision to trade with Iran. More generally, please don't export to terroristic nations, or those oppressive to their own people. I understand that the need to make money weighs heavily in the decision making process, but this is a small piece of leverage that we as individuals and companies can exert on these nations.

    Of course, export all of the food and medicine you can. I don't think there is any moral reason to deny people food; I feel that would be terroristic in and of itself.

    Iran has definitely been trying to improve recently, which would make the decision harder for me. They looks like they are going through some sort of Islamic Reformation. Maybe we should simply reach out to them now. However, I think people should think carefully before deciding to support that country.

    Anonymous for voicing controversial ideas (hopefully not flamebait.)
  • no, that's cyber-warfare :-)
  • That only works if you are only exporting the kernel and not a whole distro. Most of the GNU software was developed in the US AFAIK. Even with distros developed out of the country (S.U.S.E. for example), there is almost certainly more than 10% code from the US in there.

    By the way, does anybody know WHY the US has this restriction? Is it part of some sort of embargo? And where did this 10% figure come from?
  • Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:

    >>I do agree with my gov't. however that some things that people in the middle east do are morally wrong and digusting to me.

    I think that many things that people IN MY OWN country do are morally wrong and disgust me.

    >>*HINT* They know this and are always looking over their shoulder to see if the people approve.

    They don't care if people approve unless it's an election year, the American people become progressively stupider with each generation when it comes to politics and technology. We live in a country where Bill Clinton was elected president TWICE. We live in a country where Ted Kennedy gets to sit in judgement of people when thy're accused of sexual harrassment! If they cared about what the people want, they'd legalize medical Marijuana. They don't because the drug companies give heavily to the campaign coffers to keep it illegal.

    >>I would like to see the day that EVERY individual has this power.

    We'd only have that power *IF* we all used it.

    >>I'm sure that some in the US gov't are sorry that the old DARPANET ever took off and grew to the Internet we all know and contribute to today.

    Have you ever though that maybe, just maybe they intended to use it to track and monitor us all? But the explosion of people on it made that impossible? (not that I believe this, but I'm just raising the issue) after all there was a suspect in custody for writing the Mellissa virus in less than a week. They used the 'net to track him down.

    >>Don't screw it up by helping those that abuse the rights of their own people!!

    Oh, and the US government never does that huh? How about barbecuing children inside their homes? How about shooting unarmed women in the face? How about slamming pregnant women into walls stomache first? How about stomping people's pet dogs? How about illegally entrapping people for their political beliefs?

    These are all things done by the "three letter" divisions within the US government.

    I'd rather be here than anywhere else in the world, but we've got a long way to go.

    LK
  • Posted by The Masked Miscreant >:):

    How about these definitions:

    Terrorism: Any coordinated violent action by the people of one nation against the people of the same, or another nation which IS NOT officially supported by the national government of the acting people.

    Act of War: Any coordinated violent action by the people of one nation against the people of the same, or another nation which IS officially supported by the national government of the acting people.

    Any feedback?

  • I assume that your code is distribution-independent, so why no have the end user get a copy of S.u.S.E Linux..?

  • Hmm... (Score:3)

    by YuppieScum ( 1096 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:44AM (#1895871) Journal
    More generally, please don't export to terroristic nations, or those oppressive to their own people.

    I suppose I ought to stop exporting the good old US of A...
  • I don't think the "new" Iran can be said to be any worse than e.g. Saudi-Arabia.
  • If you boycot some entity, it should be because you believe it will do some good. Not just in order to be consistent. Consistency shouldn't be its own goal.

    So if the US Government really believe the Cuba boycot will help liberate the Cuban people (it hasn't worked very well until now), then they should continue the boycot, regardless of how they treat other totalitarian nations.

    I happen to believe the best weapons of the US against communist totalitarian regimes are Disney, McDonald and soap operas (i.e. the american way of life). These generally follow the trade, so boycots are unlikely to be effective against that kind of countries.
  • Sorry, but USA supports terrorist too and does all other kind of nasty things too.

  • Easy Solution, Part the First (Score:4)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:39AM (#1895875) Homepage Journal
    1. Create a file - twiddles.c - and place the following two lines in it:
    #ifndef _Bloody_Stupid_ #endif /* Bloody Stupid */

    2. Write a short shell script which inserts compiler-valid junk into the twiddles.c file, between the #ifdef and #ifndef. Doesn't matter what. Ensure that twiddles.c makes for 90% of all the code in the Linux kernel.

    3. Add -DBLOODY_STUPID to the compiler string in the Makefile.

    4. Add twiddles.c to the list of objects compiled and linked by the kernel. Don't worry about bloat, as the whole of twiddles.c will compile, link and optimise to next to nothing.

    You now have a US-legal kernel, as more than 90% of your code is GUARANTEED produced outside of the USA.

  • Note to flamers: Iran has one of the best human rights records in the Middle East, and is one of the most democratic countries in the area. Don't believe what you see on CNN. Note that women can vote in Iran (evil) and men can't vote in Saudi Arabia (our ally).)

    If you truly believe the above, how do you explain the persecution of Baha'is in Iran?
    You want to find out what I'm talking about:
    http://www.bahai.org/bworld/main.cfm?token=105971& DocumentID=234 [bahai.org]
  • ...if you want to go somewhere with a booming high-tech economy, high quality of life and a friendly and relaxed attitude. Ireland is currently undergoing net immigration (for the first time ever) - as tech workers swarm there from all over Europe and even N. America. They have really nice tax breaks and it is not too hard to get a work permit. In fact you only need to have a single Irish great-grandparent to claim Irish citizenship - which means that if you are American you have a very good chance of getting citizenship.

    Of course, once you have Irish citizenship you have an automatic right to reside and work in any of the 15 European Union countries - so if you get bored of Eire you can take yourself off to Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, UK, wherever...

    Nick (whose trying to decide between the UK, Ireland, France and the Netherlands when he goes back to Europe)

  • How do you know if a programme is American? Is it so when the company or organisation that develops it is in America? Or is it when the developers are American? If it's the former, then Linux doesn't qualify as there is no central organisation managing its development. If it's the latter, then it would be plausible to say that more than 10% of Linux developers are in America.

    If you were to take the central-organisation point of view, you might want to consider using OpenBSD. It shouldn't be constrained by USA's export laws.

    (Note: Since it's Iran, we shouldn't go straight ahead into saying "dain-bramaged export laws" or some other vitriol related to the subject. It's a more serious situation than with cryptographic software).
  • Oh, so you're one of those who take the 'u' out of "colour"?

    Eh, had to do it too...
  • This has NOTHING to do with encryption. Iran is one of a few countries that hardly anything can be exported to from the US, because they are considered an "enemy of the state" and the US government doesnt want them to have any technology if it can prevent it.
  • This is quite likely the funniest comment I've ever read on Slashdot ever.

    -- adr

  • How exportable is Linux. (Score:3)

    by MikeBall ( 1948 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:28AM (#1895882) Homepage
    I would have to believe that since Linux is being developed by a world-wide collection of programmers, none of which actually "owns" the code provided, that Linux itself must be exempt from any trade or export barriers.

    As the questioner pointed out, it is very easy to access a distribution (ANY distribution) of Linux from anywhere in the world. By developing a product to run on Linux, you should be fairly certain that your prospective customer's already have FREE access to the Linux base itself.



    Michael J. Ball
    Open Source Who's Who
  • Yes, he currently works for NASA, but before that he did do a stint at the NSA. Donald Becker has worked at many places over the years (those that I know about are Harris Corp, NSA, MIT and NASA), when he first started working on the Linux ethernet drivers he was working at the NSA though and thusly the copyright included in the ethernet drivers that he wrote.

  • Re:My personal plea... (Score:5)

    by dentin ( 2175 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:44AM (#1895884) Homepage
    I cannot agree with this. One of the best ways to free or change a nation is through trade and the free flow of information. Linux is an excellent way to do this, as it can truly get into the hands of the people where it is needed most. The more common linux becomes in countries like this, the more communication there will be. Communication is good - it tempers those who would be fanatical out of ignorance.

    And yes, from what I understand Iran is undergoing some social changes. Trade involving communications equipment and software for the public can only help. I hope this isn't a government contract :P

    Anyway, for the actual question: Have them agree on some standard distribution to install your packages on top of. I wouldn't risk shipping Linux itself, the USA import/export people aren't that bright and would try to thwack you out of stupidity.
  • True enough, except for one little detail: Linus doesn't like in Finland anymore. True, I don't think he's a citizen at this point (has he even lived in the US long enough to be eligible?) but all of the code he's written since moving here was written on American soil, therefore it'd be considered American by our paranoid government. They'd probably try to say that the code he wrote before then is too, citing some obscure law or another.

    Sad to say, Linux probably isn't exportable. Neither will most of the GNU stuff, since even though GNU is not comprised solely of Americans it is an American organization and holds the copyrights on almost all of the code, if not all of it (I'll have to check their policy on that again).

    Again, however, you could do what the PGP writers did, though that'd take a long time.
  • What is the difference between Chine and Cuba? To explain that, I'll relate a story I heard once. Someone asked the owner of a company that makes deodorant what China meant to him.

    His answer: "Two billion armpits."

    In other words, simply put, China's such a lucrative business opportunity that the US is willing to go against its own ideals for it.
  • Remember, Icelanders are the decendants of Vikings, a very fierce and warlike tribe!

    Fierce and warlike tribe huh. Then perhaps you can tell me why we haven't raised weapons in war since the 13th century? AFAIK we are the only nation in Europe, and in the industrialized states with that record.

    ps. I wouldn't call that thing with the Brits between 1960-1976 a war, but it's amazing how fast they "surrendered" when we threatened to leave NATO :)

    ----- Not only am I perfect, I'm icelandic too.

  • Ah, so.. it's a one-way thing? I.e. Americans are the only ones who get to stereotype the rest of the world?

    I mean, hell, everybody else must be plain stupid if they don't play american football or baseball. The rest of the world must be pretty stupid since it's playing proper football (american: soccer). As for Formula1? What's that? .. Oh.. I see, it's like Indy 500, only it's not american!

    A word of advice, take your head out of your a$$ and look around you. The world does, amazingly, NOT revolve around that thing called US of A.

  • Just get someone at an Iranian University to ftp a Linux distribution from any non-US public FTP server. That way the Iranian citizen/University and government can deal with the issue. Heh, do you really think Iran would extradite an Iranian citizen to the US for downloading publicly available software? (I doubt they even have any kind of extradition agreement with the United States)
  • I hope someone has taken a good look at that code.
  • I have an former Iranian as a flatmate and from all accounts personal freedoms are much stronger than in Pro-American countries such as Saudi Arabia an Kuwait. Religious law is imposed much less streictly than either of the above countries to boot. Even so it was not enough for her and she left.
  • I was rather annoyed some time ago when installing some US made software on my home PC when the liscence basically prohibited people from a list of nationalities from using the software. At the time my flatmate was an Iranian and legally could not use this software. It was just a simple productivity tool, not something that could have terrorist application. My flatmate did not approve of the ruling theocracy etc (to the point of having left Iran to avoid it), was not living in Iran and was not in any way hostile to the USA. The computer was in a third country.

    These things only exist to let a crooked politian in one (rather nationalistic and beligerant) country claim to be doing something about a problem (that the country partly caused). Depriving the Iranians of word processors and spread sheets isn't going to do a lot.

    Ugh
  • A quick grep through /usr/src/linux/drivers/net/*.c
    reveals the following.

    Thanks

    Bruce

    3c501.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may be used and
    3c503.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may be used and
    3c507.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    3c509.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may be used and
    82596.c: National Security Agency. This software may only be used and distributed
    8390.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    ac3200.c: National Security Agency. This software may only be used and distributed
    arc-rimi.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may only be used
    arcnet.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may only be used
    at1700.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    atp.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    com20020.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may only be used
    com90io.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may only be used
    com90xx.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may only be used
    cops.c: * Director, National Security Agency.
    daynaport.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    depca.c: (as represented by the Director, National Security Agency).
    e2100.c: Director, National Security Agency. This software may be used and
    fmv18x.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    hp.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    ipddp.c: * Director, National Security Agency.
    lance.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    ne.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    ne2k-pci.c: by the Director, National Security Agency.
    pcnet32.c: * Director, National Security Agency.
    skeleton.c: * Director, National Security Agency.
    smc-ultra.c: Director, National Security Agency.
    wd.c: Director, National Security Agency.
  • FSF/GNU only owns software when the copyright has been explicitly assigned to it. It does not own software just because you use the GPL. That software is still owned by the copyright owner, who is most often not FSF but the software author or the entity that funded the work.

    The software is owned by its individual authors or their funding agency. For example, many of the networking drivers in the Linux kernel are declared to be owned by the United States Government as represented by the director of the National Security Agency. That is the copyright owner for most of Donald Becker's work. Fortunately, those drivers are under the GPL, and the government can't take the GPL back.

    I actually have some question regarding whether the Government's copyright is legitimate and whether or not the networking drivers are in the public domain. However, they are very definitely U.S.-produced software regardless of their copyright status.

    If your government is cooperating in a U.S. trade embargo on Iran, they've signed a treaty that says they'll do so, and they're likely to take their export restrictions seriously. I suspect that there is more than 10% U.S. content in a Linux distribution, but I'd have to audit one to make sure.

    A recent U.S. court decision supported that some software was protected free speech, but I don't think it went far enough to help overturn a trade embargo.

    Thanks

    Bruce Perens

  • Since at least here in Finland the Govt just wants you to fill some forms and *bingo!* you get export licence for the country.

    For a while after signing the agreement I was really worried though..

    --
    Pirkka

  • Yeah!

    The "Space Exploration" special edition of Scientific American had some cool ideas howto terraform Mars..

    I guess if US stopped wasting money on protecting people from other people, there'd be plenty of funding to make Mars ours!!

    -Tommi

  • ...which actually works quite nicely as a firearm filter.

    Borders have their uses. But true, all too often they get in the way. Good thing we have the Internet!
  • ...source lines? Binary bytes? Directory entries?

    I would rather guess that what is meant is 10% of the code's monetary value. That's what usually applies when stating any product's ``home-grown-ness''. But I may be wrong; read the treaty/regulation text.

    If it is 10% of money value, it's simple: The code itself if worth 0,00 Sch. on the free market. It's the packaging that adds monetary value. So use a non-US distribution, like SuSE or PHT.

    Anyway, best is probably to teach the Iranians to burn their own distro's. It's about time they learned it, and might even be the start of a good business!

  • No, there is nothing anyone can do, because of the nature of the distributed development of OSS. How can any country prevent another of getting Linux, Beowulf, FreeBSD, or any other OSS application when it is available from dozens of CD-ROm vendors and hundreds of Internet servers?

    You bring up an interesting point, one I had not thought of before, but when RMS says "free as in speech, not free as in beer", I am afraid it also means free to be applied to evil purposes.
  • that the CIA doesn't have an old map of your city lying around....could be bad for you.

    Seriously though.....I wouldn't do it, maybe because I trust people about as far as I can throw them.....

    And all of you with these lofty notions of peace and love and crap, realize that the world is a terrible place, always has been and always will be. It doesn't matter if it is USA, or Iran, somebody is trying to screw over someone else, that is just the way it works. I don't like everything the US does, but I would rather be here than most places. Just deal with the fact that Utopia or Xanadu, or whatever you want to call it will not exist on this planet, ever......at least not while humans with conscious thoughts are around, and I think that's fine.....

    PS......I saw a NIKE comment earlier.......I wonder how much more a pair of sneakers would cost if the wages were right....we would all need to go shoeless, since I can barely afford them now.....


  • Ah yes, lawyers do cost money but if you can get the ACLU on your side they're a lot cheaper. So make sure the laws violate some form of free expression and fight away!!!
  • That is not how the GPL works. What the GPL specifies is that IF you give the binary to a person, you must also make the source available to them. It does not specify that you _must_ redistribute the code. Therefore, it is still within the rights of an author (in the US outside the 9th circuit, say) to create or modify GPL'ed code that cannot be exported somewhere (cryptography software), as long as no one violates the law by exporting it.

    This is a necessary practical limitation to the freedom specified by the GPL, as otherwise stupid countries' regulations (i.e., the cryptography=munitions BS in this country) would make all GPL'ed software illegal to create. RMS is not advocating breaking the law, at least not in this context. =)

    Kyle
    --
    Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
  • Or whoever you had to contact to get the export licence for your own software from. I think the important question is "how will your government interpret the regulations if you supply Linux". We can't answer that (at least I haven't seen any replies from Austrian government officials). For example, does the 10% rule apply to a distribution as a whole, or each package, or every individual file in it? Does "American" mean written in America? Supplied from America? Containing any American code at all?
    If you get an answer you don't like, you then have to worry about whether it is worth the cost of challenging it in court, if possible.
    The simplest answer, if it's commercially acceptable, would probably be to tell your customer that that you are happy to supply the Linux version of your software, but that they will have to get Linux themselves.

  • Not to deflate your ego, but over half of all US citizens do not have Anglo Saxon names

    Yeah, but having watched US TV for the last three weeks, it seems the ones with Anglo-Saxon names are more inclined to be part of the lunatic fringe or ill-informed isolationists.

    The short length of US history, and the strong sense of cultural affinity that many US citizens share with their or their ancestors homeland is at odds with American jingoism. I will never understand how such a racially diverse and affluent country can be so ill-informed and hypocritical.

    I find many faults with my homeland, not least the lack of full egalitarianism, and the existence of a state funded monarchy, but find it infinitely preferable to the US.


    Chris Wareham

  • My comment had nothing to do with proportions of the code that are or are not written by US citizens. It pointed out that regardless of that, the Linux trademark is owned by a Finnish citizen. Many major packages outside of the FSF assigned code also have questionable legal status. MySQL for example.

    The attempts by the US government to limit dissemination of intellectual property (vis. software source code) are remarkably similar to Soviet control of all intellectual property. Have a look on the web for information about Samizdat, the Novy Mir journal, Socialist-Realism and authors like Solzhenitsyn. Although I doubt that software embargos will have the power to bring down a government ...

    Chris Wareham

  • I think you'd have a hard time proving how much GNU code is American. And given that the list of GNU maintainers has a vast number of non-Anglo Saxon names on it, I think you could be wrong.

    Don't get all flustered that some 'terrorist' state is getting it's hands on Uncle Sams crown jewels. You seem to forget the decidedly iffy way that the Carter administration tried to infringe Iranian sovereignty. They also gave asylum to the Shah of Iran, who was undoubtedly guilty of mismanagement of the Iranian economy.

    Having watched US TV for the last three weeks while on a business trip, I can see that US jingoism is alive and kicking ...


    Chris Wareham
  • I (an American) used to think this, but then I asked a Canadian friend of mine about it. She said she didn't really care, and that she'd never heard anyone in Canada make a fuss about it, and that people there called the US "America" too.

    That's what she told me, anyway. I don't really care, I'm happy to call it whatever, but I hear plenty of non-Americans calling it America.

  • With all due respect, Alan, please don't assume that all Americans fit that ugly stereotype. You shouldn't make categorical stereotypes based on the posting of this one kook, or even ten kooks. Don't forget, the kookiest are usually the most visible, whether it's making antisocial posts or bombing abortion clinics.

    There are many Americans who don't buy all the crap the military-industrial-media complex feeds us, and are actually pretty good people, and agree with you 100% on all the important issues (like idiotic imperialist arrogant export controls). However, the general population doesn't control our government as much as one would think. Some of us are trying to change that, and moral support from elsewhere helps.

    Feel free to criticize "the US government", "US foreign policy" (hey, I'm with ya), or even "some Americans", but not "Americans" as a whole.

    Thanks!

  • Hasn't the US designed and used chemical and biological weapons?

    Iran is not the same Iran from 1980. Things have changed. US export restrictions against Iran are stupid. As are US export restrictions against Cuba.

    -an American citizen that lived in Iran for 4 years

  • Let me begin by saying I'm not a Lawyer. I'll ammend that by saying that you should get one. If you have a s/w package that's good enough to export, you can afford a lawyer to give you the quick run down of what is and is not legal for your country/region/situation.

    As many have pointed out, the problem here are the export control laws in Austria with respect to Iran and U.S. written code, as established by the Wassenaar Arrangement. As such, you may not be able to export Linux, or parts thereof (e.g. Don Becker's net drivers) to Iran, without falling under Austrian sanctions. However, not all countries have these sanctions. So what you do is export your package, including any U.S. written GPL code, to a third country (i.e. Jamaca) where you set up a separate distribution company incorperated under local (Jamacian) law. This company does nothing more than act as a middle man between you and your Iranian customers. This is essentially what is done in money laundering, except that the Jamician holding company in that case is a bank (I understand that Jamician law is very kind to financial institutions). This usually complicates matters so severly (as international law is involved) that no one would try to prosecute any simple legalities. The only time I've heard of prosecutions in an arrangement such as described is when it's being done to cover strictly illegal activities, such as drug-running.

    So is that what software distribution has become? Drug running? I'm remined of Burroughs origional Blade Runner (not the movie version of DADOES). I hope not, but I don't know. What I do know is that you need a lawyer to work out the details, but at least this might give you a general direction to head.

    On the flip side, as others have noted, Iran has undergone a dramatic cultural change in the last few years. I would say the political culture there is much more diplomatic than they were three years ago. I would venture that there is the distinct possiblility that they'll be removed from the list of sensitive nations in the not to distant future. But don't hold your breath. By that I mean in the next decade. It won't help your bottom line now, but it's something to watch out for.

  • The question is

    1)whether the US laws will impact any future trade you may do with the US.

    1b) whether such trade is likely

    2) Whether Austrian law further restricts your ability to trade with Iran, or adds punitive measures to the US regulations.

    I suspect 2 is unlikely and 1 is likely and only you know the answer to 1b.
  • And this begs the question 10% of what? Of the C source, of the assembly code it produces, or the machine code?

    If I write a lex/yacc parser, is my contribution counted by the lines of lex/yacc code I write, or the number of C source lines that they produce?

    If I write it in lisp and each paren gets its own line, then you reformat my code so each page fits on one line, has my contribution changed? This restriction sounds stupid and totally unenforcable.

  • I'm shocked and amazed at the number of posts advocating the violation of US laws. Especially the claims that the GPL is immune to export restrictions... HELLO is any one home... Then PGP would be freely exportable.

    I would contact your national department of comerce or equivilent organization.

  • Thanks for telling me. I am half Danish half Icelandic so I know. Iceland is part of Nato FYI. If you must know England has been an "Aggressor" as late as 1960. They had a big bruhaa over fishing rights with British Navy protecting the Scottish Trawlers. My point was Iceland are not going to do anything. If you dont like Iceland pick Andorra. PS. Most Vikings were softies they just got bad press ;)
  • I agreed with you. The concept of National states are an anacronism and root to much evil. The best way to get rid of this concept is render it irrelevant. Long live the Web. Get the source code from the weakest link in this Nationalism Chain. Download from Iceland (These 360,000 brave people does not have an army) and you are probably safe.
  • Well, having the code developed by an American citizen is not enough (it would make US programmers pretty much unemplyable outside their country); instead the decision must be based upon the nationality of the organization having the ownership. This could be

    i) the individual copyrightholders, in which case it is up to the US government to show that more than 10% are American;

    ii) Linus Torvalds (as copyrightholder of the Linux name), and as far as I know, he is a Finnish citizen so no problem;

    iii) the country of business of the distributor, in which case it's just to choose a non-American one (like SuSe or Pacific Hi-Tech)

    I seriously doubt that you would get into any kind of trouble over it.

    Should any of us deal with Iran? As a poster has pointed out, opening communications and interacting with others is the best way to get along and a great incentive to curb unacceptable behavior by another party. Had there never been a trade embargo with Cuba, I seriously doubt that nation would still be Marxist...

  • Hard questions.

    Certainly more than 10% of the code in at least some key utilities that a Linux pretty much requires is written by Americans. Start with gcc, grep and ls, and work from there. Almost certainly the rule does not care about what the programmer wants so there is not a good case for saying that the FSF code is free because they intended it that way. Even worse, the GPL works against you since it depends upon ownership having remained with the author.

    My recommendation? Seek out a Linux distribution in another country that pays no attention to silly US laws and work out a deal where they buy Linux + support from there, and your product separately.

    Regards,
    Ben Tilly
  • Governments of all stripes are torn between wanting "progress" and yet wanting to control it. China is a classic example. They want economic progress, and are permitting a few free market reforms to encourage that growth, yet they are scared to death of the personal freedom that is an inseperable part of a free market.

    Do everything you can to encourage and and all kinds of freedom in Iran. Freedom is contagious, a virus; free source may be a small tool, but a tool it is. A few Iranians will see the amount of freedom out there, and spread a few words. A few more will use Linux to set up their own web sites and ISPs, with the government less able to control it. Thus will freedom spread.

    Hiding freedom is the opposite of helping it spread.

    --
  • At least they don't have to worry about NT.
  • This makes me sick. The Iranian govt. is EVIL.

    So are the American. And the Serbian. As a matter of fact, I don't like my very own Hungarian goverment either. So what? I don't hate americans just because they have bloody stupid, agressive and ignorant goverment. You shouldn't punish people for they goverment!

    Szo
  • If we export MS Windows, which also incedentally happens to be the name of a double glazing company in south Hampshire, England, to Iran, I guess they might be pretty upset. Back to the main subject, what other countries are affected; I was about to export three linux systems to hong kong; what with this Chinese embassy business, we have had to delay for three weeks atleast.
  • I thought Becker works for NASA, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration, not the NSA, the black-helicopter National Security Administration.

    Furthermore, I thought that Becker's drivers are copyright by him personally, and not NASA or whatever agency he works for.

    You have a good point that the US Government is not allowed to copyright anything per se; anything they produce is in the public domain.

  • Download from Iceland (These 360,000 brave people does not have an army) and you are probably safe.

    Now that's some mushy-headed thinking. Did you ever stop to wonder why Iceland doesn't have an army? Could it be because they have big, powerful neighbors like NATO to protect them? Or that they are a tiny island in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles from the nearest potential agressor?

    Remember, Icelanders are the decendants of Vikings, a very fierce and warlike tribe!

  • But since the US is, in the current era, the dominant member of the international oligarchy --- the guarantor, if you will, of THE SYSTEM --- and since terrorism is more or less defined as the use of violent and somewhat random means to overthrow the system ... well, trying to define the US as terrorist is oxymoronic with those definitions, isn't it? :)

    Excellent, thoughtful point. thank you for pointing this out.

    the notion of a religious theocracy grates against my nerves pretty strongly.

    As opposed to a secular theocracy? ;-) Seriously I agree with you here... Neither Iran nor Yugoslavia nor any of the other nations on the US's official shit list is exactly a libertarian utopia. So in most respects, Americans are better off than most in terms of political freedom. However we are still very very far from the ideals of Thomas Jefferson et al who advocated a limited Federal government that was powerful within its domain, yet whose domain was very limited. The Feds seem to think that everyone's business is their own. They also seem to think that duplicating every state law at a Federal level is also a keen idea.

    Of course, it should be said that the blame for all of this rests squarely with the American voters, that tiny fraction of the adult population that actually gets out there and determines who runs things. We elected these assholes who wrote these idiotic laws, now we have to deal with the consequences.

    That said, a poster in this thread had an excellent idea... Ireland is a fine, fine, non-aligned country. And, I happen to be of Irish ancestry myself, or so I am told. And my girlfriend has red hair, so she's GOT to be Irish, right?! And if I can claim Irish citizenship, then I'm entitled to travel around various EU nations such as the Netherlands. Look out Europe, here I come!

  • First of all, I like Iceland very much. Both the people and the country seem very nice from what little I know. So my post shouldn't be construed as slander on Icelanders.

    However, it is my understanding that Iceland is not an official voting member of NATO, but has a defence "understanding" with the alliance.

    And as far as Vikings, again it was my understanding that enjoyed a good bit of pillage and rape (but then who doesn't) until they were settled down by Christian missionaries. So the Scandinavians had a reputation for fierceness until about the 12th-13th century, and after that, they have a reputation for being as gentle as lambs.

    England in particular was terrorized in the Middle Ages by Norsemen raiding expeditions.

  • Sorry, Bruce. I guess I should have actually looked at the source before flapping my virtual gums. ;-) Lesson learned.

    And re: what the poster below me says, yeah, I'd probably better go in and look at the NE2k code to be sure that all my packets aren't being forwarded to the line-eater. [bton.ac.uk] ;-)

  • this is in no way condoning the awful violence that has plagued Northern Ireland, but...

    Surely you are aware that England colonized Ireland in a most brutal and naked way for hundreds of years? That Ireland only gained its independence in the 20th century? That many Irish feel resentment that a significant chunk of their country remains in the hands of colonizers?

    Now, on the other hand, it must be said that a majority of people in Ulster are Protestant / Pro-British, but still the rights of the minority must be respected.

  • As a semi-patriotic American, I must agree as well. It's not just invading other countries (though Slobo is no Boy Scout) or supporting repressive regimes (Indonesia, Nicaragua, etc) it's mainly Federal oppresion of its own citizens. The main example of this is the War on (Some) Drugs / Minorities / Damn Longhairs / Amendments I-X [inclusive] / All Non-God-Fearing-Right-Thinking-People-Everywhere.

    On the other hand, and this is a big other hand, not too many countries are much better. I would rather live in Fascist USA than Uber-Fascist China. The list of free, democratic, non-warlike nations grows ever shorter... hmmm, I wonder if the Netherlands is looking for a new immigrant who is an excellent Python programmer... Only problem is I don't speak Dutch. Let's see, I hear New Zealand is nice, and they don't invade hardly anybody. Of course they do subscribe, or at least give lip service to, the War on Drug Users (err, except Alcohol, which kills more people every year than heroin, cocaine, and others combined.) And nicotine. And wait, I forgot caffeine. Errr, where was I?

  • Our government has very good reasons to have
    embargoes on countries that support terrorism.
    The day those countries decide to stop their
    nonsense, the embargo will go away.
  • Those laws are not stupid, those country
    support terrorists. This can't be tolerated.
    If those countries want the sanctions lifted
    they know what to do.

  • Don't screw it up by helping those that abuse the rights of their own people!!

    In that case, I expect you were one of those organising demonstrations when the US were arming Saddam Hussein? Or going against interventions in Middle America? And you're opposed to death penalty, I suppose?

    Let's face it - I have yet to see a country with a clean bill when it comes to human rights - and the US is no exception, unfortunately (if it were, I'd know where to find Paradise, maybe...).

    Argathin
  • First: Some of the previous comments missed the point. This is a serious buissness thing. There are no ways doing something half-legal. The competition will sue you.

    Second: Austria is a neutral country. Laws, for example, forbid exporting of weapons to countries involved in a war.

    I do not understand, why Austria should be bound to foreign export-rules, especially when this is primaly a conflict between iran and usa.

    Sadly Austria accepted some contracts like the Wassenaar-agreement, which (I think) primaly handles the export of dual-use goods. (like cryptographic programs *Grrrr*)

    I'm not sure why this or other laws in Austria should forbid the export of anything else into iran. Maybe its a EC thing...?

    Arn't there any austrian Lawyers around ?
  • I will not flame, just point out some troubling discrepancies on the American government and the general attitude of most Americans. What is, realy, the difference between China and Cuba? Yet the American govt is willing to bend over backwards in order to get a pice of the chinese market; giving only limmited protests over Chinas record. While the economic sanctions on Cuba, (and I don't like Castro or his regime) driven by some loud mouthed, hypocrite politicians and rich Cuban-Americans, keep driving down the lives of people in the island. The reason is, in summary, that Cuba offers little economic potential for the USA, except for the poor, displaced, little rich kids that want their palacess back.

    sorry, getting too political...I may want to work in the states some day ;)

    ANYWAY, back to the question. I say go for it, if you are realy moraly comfortable and careful. The more business opt to disregard politically motivated restrictions, the less they will become tools of the whims of the likes of Helms, and K^Hclan. Foreing policy is up to the politicians and diplomats.
  • > Joy.. the US trying to impose its will on
    > another country. Ain't life grand.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm usually one of the first to point out the stupidity of American technology laws. But as far as I know the US Gov't hasn't laid claim to Linux yet, and I predict that they won't even try. To assume that they will is almost as stupid as classifying encryption as munitions.

    Rgds,

    Mid
  • Let's see if we can turn this into a political flame war, shall we? *grin*

    The US can't be a terrorist nation. That isn't to say it can't do evil things --- it unquestionably has, and does. But since the US is, in the current era, the dominant member of the international oligarchy --- the guarantor, if you will, of THE SYSTEM --- and since terrorism is more or less defined as the use of violent and somewhat random means to overthrow the system ... well, trying to define the US as terrorist is oxymoronic with those definitions, isn't it? :)

    Putting aside pedantry for a moment ... there are a lot of things the US has done that I dislike. This has been true in modern times irrespective of which president or which political party is in power. But I've spent 3-4% of my life overseas, and that's an amount that's increasing in recent years rather than decreasing ... and I can't say as I like the actions of any other countries any better.

    That said, Iran is somewhat more ... unpleasant .. than most. I'm a modern westerner, so the notion of a religious theocracy grates against my nerves pretty strongly. On the other hand, Iran is undeniably nowhere near as obnoxious as Afghanistan ... and the age-old diplomatic question remains, the same question that plagues relations with China: will we do more to make Iran a better place by engaging and trading with them, or by punishing them (like Cuba?)

    I don't think anyone really knows the answer.

  • There are several core issues here:

    • How do you count the percentage of American code?
    • What makes code American?

    Is the percentage of code measured by number of bytes in the binary, (and compiled for what platform?) the number of bytes of source code, the number of lines of code developed by Americans, or perhaps even by algorithms patented to Americans.

    One could develop something in another country based on an algorithm (unfortunately) patented to an American. Would that code be American or not?

    This is yet another pathetic attempt by a technically inept government to take absolute control of technology.

  • I hope it's countryless (Score:5)

    by Merk ( 25521 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:40AM (#1895984) Homepage

    Personally, I abhor the concept of countries. Because I happened to be born north of an imaginary line in North America I happen to be Canadian.

    To me one of the great things about the 'net is that it's essentially countryless. I love the fact that it confuses lawmakers/lawenforcers/taxtakers to no end when a business is registered in Jamaica, is served off a server in Chicago and has customers in the Netherlands.

    I would assume that since Linux is not stored centrally anywhere, contains contributions from people around the globe, who may or may not be known/credited, etc. that it's countryless.

    Now I imagine the commercial distributions can be tagged as "belonging" to the country in which that business is incorporated... but who knows.

  • Re:So why not move to Iran then Alan (Score:3)

    by Alan Cox ( 27532 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @01:13PM (#1895989) Homepage
    The iranian government isnt evil, your US propoganda knowledge is out of date. The Iranians are next to the Iraqi's who are this years bad guys. Please go back for a current indoctrination.

    Americans have a very odd idea about much of the middle east where "good" is defined in terms of arms sales, and money dictates "truth".

    Number of iranian children who shot each other in school this year: 0

    Number of chinese embassies bombed by iran in error: 0


    Live there - no I don't speak the language, follow the culture or fit the religious philosophy. (Anyone about to make cracks on that point should count the number of abortion centres bombed in the USA and shut up).

    Alan

  • Iran and Linux (Score:5)

    by Alan Cox ( 27532 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @09:58AM (#1895990) Homepage
    Iranians contribute to the kernel, Iranians have beowulf clusters and Iranians have plenty of options for buying Linux from countries who have the sense to tell the US where to go.

    So America may be crippling your business but thats between you and your parliament. You may want to look at moving to another EEC state that is freer ?

    Alan

  • The U.S. government will say no way no matter what (Score:3)

    by KirkKhan ( 28065 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:25AM (#1895991)
    I'm sure that the US government will say that Linux is more than 10% American, regardless of whether it is or not - their position on crypto makes it clear that logic has nothing to do with these policies. I would like to say that you should just tell them to go screw themselves and go for it, but from a business standpoint that might not be so wise. On the other hand, if you tell them where they can download it, and only make suggestions on which distro to get, without actually selling it to them or exporting it yourselves, I don't see how you could get nailed. Be sure that the US government will try to figure out a way to nail you anyway - they REALLY hate the Iranians!
  • I agree wholeheartedly that the US government regulations on crypto and general export are absurd

    So far we agree.

    But just because our government has some absurd regulations that you (and I) don't like, does not make us a terrorist supporting nation like Iran

    No, but actively supporting the killing of tens of thousands of innocent civilians does make the US a terrorist nation. (Ok, not really terrorism, just the same result in a much larger scale)

    This is simply NOT akin to attacking the Serbs, who are committing genocide and forced emigration on the Albanian people

    Pretty much like the NATO member Turkey, one of the largest importer of US made arms? Turkey has for decades committed exactly the same thing which is now happening in Kosovo. More than one million Kurds has been forced to flee for their lives.

    The fact is, some civilian targets have been mistakenly hit, which is unavoidable but unfortunate in a military operation of this scale.

    As it was unfortunate when Vietnamese children just happened to be killed by napalm, or shredder bombs tottaly ineffective against military targets?

    The US government, say what you will about it, has no personal grudge against innocent civilians in Serbia or elsewhere.

    This i beleive. But I am also convinced no US government has ever cared the slightest if their actions caused the deaths of thousands of civilians.

    GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK SKULLS: the US is not an Imperialist power.

    If overthrowing democratic governments, bombing innocents to pieces and supporting murderous regimes with weapons and money to ensure your own econominc gain isn't imperialistic, please, tell me what imerialism is.

    [we are looking out for] the interests of innocent civilians

    Sure you are. The US had nothing to say in protest when thousands of "communists" were murdered in Indonesia. The US, in fact, where providing them with arms. The US kept on selling arms to the Indonesian dictators when they invaded East Timor and wiped out a third of the East Timorese population. Of course the US government had the best interest of the Timorese in mind!

    And of course you are considered with the well being of the average Colombian worker, where unionists get killed by the hundreds every week by the paramilitaries trained and armed with the direct support of the United States of America, The Land of the Free. Yeah, right!

    I gotta go puke.

  • It seems to me that most of the murderous regimes we (the US) have supported in the past were supported in the interest of preventing another World War (i.e. attempting to "win" the cold war by supporting rightist regimes against communist insurgents)


    Of course stopping the Soviet Union from getting too much power was as a large bit of the US motivation. But the Soviet Union is no more. The US stands alone with the power to enforce their will over most nations. And the US still support and commit atrocities.


    There's no risk of a "Communist revolution" in Turkey. The Kurdish people who get their villages blasted to rubbles are no Soviet agents. And still the US choose not to utter a word of protest. Still the US make big bucks selling weapons that are used for killing innocents.


    The democratic government of Guatemala before 1954 was not a communist one. Though it favoured the poor people at the cost of US company United Fruit. And so the US had the government overthrown and installed a regime which would torment the people of Guatemala for decades with its death squads. With the direct participation of the CIA. That is profit at the cost of human lives.


    You should also keep in mind that often the supposed "victims" of these oppressive, militaristic regimes are just as oppressive and militaristic in their own right (the guerillas, or insurgents, or rebels, or whatever, not the innocent civilians who inevitably end up getting killed by BOTH sides in such conflicts)


    Exactly. And the people sent to the Gulags were all counter-revolutionaries threatening the peoples revolution, remember? Just mention something about "communist guerilla" to the CNN, and your death squads can work undisturbed. We must at all cost keep the commies out, even if that means supporting a dictator. (And often a dictator that manages to keep the people from complaining about their poverty and gladly working for big foreign companies exploiting their natural resources and cheap labour. And of course a dictator that spends a large part of the nations money at arms manufactured in the US)


    To chalk up all of the US's interests to sheer economic greed is absurd though.


    If is isn't greed, then what is it? Sheer evil? Ignorance? Unloading a bit of the huge amount of weaponry you have no room for? Greed seems pretty likely to me.


    We GIVE more money in aid and support than we could ever GET from many of these countries.


    Really? Go compare your the numbers for the US foreign aid (and please, do not include aid in the form of weapons) with some UN statistics of how much most third world countries are paying in interest for loans that have already been paid many times over. Loans that were spent on weapons to keep the people opressed and the economies 'open'. Also compare it with the profits of some US based multinational companies. And not to mention the profits from selling wheat to often starving nations. The US is not losing money over all this.


    Oh, just for fun, stick into the comparison the money spent so far on bombing what's left of Jugoslavia in your peacekeeping attempts.

  • I would like to point out a few things first...

    Iran and Iraq's *governments* had a war in the 80s. During which time, the US sold bombs and weaponds to Iraq which were used to murder the citizens of Iran. In the late 80, early 90s, Iraq fell out of favor for some reason or another, and now they are being bombed by the US (to fulful the US's need to maintain a war economy, but thats another posting...).

    Short is this... the actions of a Country represent the actions of a government which do not necessarly represent the wishes and desires of the citizens, espeically in a country which does not have representitive government (although considering how indivdual lobbiests can cause laws which inconvience many others, how is that "represensitive"?)

    So, why do I care? Well it just so happens that my girlfriend is from Iran. She calls herself "Persian" because that is what she is. She speaks persian, and soon so will I. Furthermore, during her 5th grade she didn't go to school because Tehran was being bombed by Iran using bombs designed and made by the United States, sold to Iraq, even though the United States knew full well that there were to be used on civilians. Innocent civilians.

    Now, is my girlfriend a terrorist? I dare anyone to say so... I would be rather upset I think. Of course not. Are there terrorists from Iran? Yes. Are there terrorists from US? HELL yeah. What about that guy who was shooting abortion doctors? He's a terrorist. Does the US engage in international terrorism? It's hard to tell, because news is hardly objective... But the US's actions certainly seem terroristic at times.

    Another thing, like the Beasty boys say, not everyone from Iran is a terrorist. Because of the Koran/Islam and because of other religions, some people feel they are religiously supported when they use violence to solve a problem. But its not a knock against those religions, because need we recall the crusades? The Spanish inquision? I don't need to continue I think.

    Another thing, in that region, there is not very much space. Countries fight over the space available, the rights to extract minerals and oil, and religious issues. However, its not the *people* fighting. If you are a mother/wife, would you want your love to go off and fight an unnecessary war and die? I don't think so.

    I wish the US would stop vilifying those countries... there are bad things about them, but don't over-villify things. Even the people in Iran don't like the governmental controlls, but hey, if you dissent, you are shot. So change is hard to institute.

    And for all you americans reading this, I hope I can change your mind. I never thought much about Iran/Iraq and all of that stuff except as emotional-less thereotical political science issues, but it becomes so much more real when the one I love was the target of my neighbour's bombs. And when she suffers discrimination due to unfair negative portrayal of Persian/Iranians by the US to satisify some obscure lame political goal. These are *PEOPLE*... no different then you mom/wife/SO/etc. I encourage any of you working for defense contracters to review your position...

    (he who feels sadness for war)

  • Re:It doesn't matter. (Score:4)

    by hasse ( 30390 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:55AM (#1896004)
    Joy.. the US trying to impose its will on another country. Ain't life grand.

    Actually, due to the Wassenaar Arrangement ( http://www.wassenaar.org [wassenaar.org]), 32 countries have agreed to enforce the same export restrictions on encryption as the US. The agreement was signed sometime late in 1998.

    Somehow this didn't get very much attention in the mainstream medias here in Norway, but due to this we got funny situations like the Opera web browser suddenly being on the weapons export list.

    It's great that the us governments word is law, not only in the us, but all over the world. Too bad the rest of us don't have the right to vote there though.

    Slightly off-topic, but anyway..

  • Re:My personal plea... (Score:4)

    by Samawi ( 31623 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @01:12PM (#1896007)
    1. Don't believe your own government's propoganda. Iran is not a terrorist country; the US has, by its own admission, sponsored far more terrorism than Iran in the last few decades (Guatemala since the fifties, Chile after 1970, Nicaragua during the eighties, even in Iran itself, and others too numerous to mention).

    2. Iran is a republic which has held every single federal and local election on time since it was founded in 1979. There are more women in Iran's parliament than in the entire US congress. Iran is by all accounts a much freer country than Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other US allies in the Middle East. They do have problems like everyone else but most of the invective against them is a reaction against the Iranian people's attempt to
    i) even dare try to have a political-economic system not based on European principles of secular humanism;
    ii) limit Western attempts, be they cultural, economic, or ideological, to dominate Middle Eastern life in general and Muslim culture in particular.

    Iran does not need anyone's patronizing or condescending approval of any so-called
    "Islamic Reformation". Islam is fine just the way it is. Iran is merely going through the same kinds of growing pains the American and French revolutions went through. This talk of whether the free software movement should include Iran is really sickening and hypocritical when one considers all of the pain and suffering caused in the world by the policies of the US, Canada, and Europe over the past two centuries.

    Nonanonymous posting of even more controversial ideas in response to anonymous flamebait voicing standard propoganda.

  • Is Linux porn? (Score:5)

    by Confused ( 34234 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @10:31AM (#1896013) Homepage
    After a quick search I found the following Austrian regulations that may apply to the export of software and storage mediums containing software.

    *) Exports to Iraq and Yugoslavia

    Those two countries are currently on the UNOs shit-list and all trade with them is forbidden. There are only a few exceptions for medical stuff. This shouldn't concern you.

    *) The Austrian Aussenhandelsgesetz (AHG)

    This law is the base-law for most of those pesky permits.

    One interesting point is right at the beginning in the definition of technology (Paragraph 1.2):

    Technology (which may be subjected to export limitations) is technical know-how recorded on storage media of any kind, which is not generally available.

    As LINUX is generally available, it seems not to be technology and therefore not subjected to this law.

    *) The Dual Use Goods list

    There is also a list with product which can be also used for military purposes. Here we find an exemption for goods with a value of less than ATS 11500 ($1000). As Linux is free and a storage medium used for export should be availble for less than that, this regulation shouldn't apply either.

    *) Pornographical Material

    There are some EU restrictions on exporting porn. Considering how some people drool over Linux, this may pose a problem. You'd better check that out.


    A few tactics that worked well in the past in similar cases are:

    *) Don't sell Linux as part of the package, just sell the support for the installation etc. If they need the software, be generous and give it to your customer as gift, download it, find it on the street, whatever.

    *) Bundle it with your system or software and calculate the percentage by value. The value of the disk with linux shouldn't exceed 10% ot the value of the whole system.


    If you still have problems with the ministry, try to find out exactly which regulation they apply
    and check if it is really relevant. Often the people at the ministry have no idea what the whole thing is about. Then hit them with a chorus chanting the mantra 'Linux is generally available and has a monetary value of less than $39.90'.

    I whish you good luck!

    johi
  • The United States has NO position of moral authority on this issue. This government has repeatedly supported oppressive dictatorships, so long as they were perceived as fascist rather than communist.

    The American government suppressed information about the Holocaust and encouraged xenophobia until they absolutely had to become involved in WWII.

    Do you really expect us to believe that the average Cuban would be better off if Batista (whom the Americans ardently supported) still held the reins of power in that country?

    To suggest that the Americans are in ANY position to pass moral judgement on other nations is to ignore the history of this nation.
  • I personally don't export software to an embargoed country. I do, however, have a problem with the United States meddling with the trade policies and other politics of sovereign nations in a hypocritical manner. The United States is and has been more than willing to support tyrannical dictatorial regimes (such as Batista's, Iraq, China in the early to mid '80s) if they suit their needs. It shocks me to see so many people of any nationality supporting this level of hypocrisy.

    As for embassies, you must be confused... There have been a few protests at government buildings against the Serbian bombings, and the occasional protest at the American embassies. However, I'm unaware of any rioting, rock throwing or bombing related to this issue in this country.

    The point is - it's not for you, and it's not for your government to determine my morals. I have a hard enough time with my own government attempting to dictate morality. I DON'T want a government I'm not under the jurisdiction of to do the same damned thing.
  • Since Linus Torvalds created Linux, legally it is his to do as he pleases and he is from Finland. However since he GPL'ed the kernal, it falls under American copyright laws and International copyright law.

    Go ahead and export to Iran. Americans do not solely create international laws or have the monopoly on what is right.
  • Joy.. the US trying to impose its will on another country. Ain't life grand.

    But in reality, it probably doesn't matter. From what I remember, a group in Iran has produced some of the best Beowulf supercomputing/clustering software. So, obviously, they already have Linux and the US Government can just go cry in the corner.

    In conclusion, if worst comes to worst, find out what distro is already comonly available in Iran, and build your software to that distro, then just odn't include the distro and tell 'em what to use.

    Regards,

    Strider
  • I don't think American export laws should be applicable to this. Why? Perhaps more than 10% of code was written in the United States. But is it 'American?' I would argue that under gnu, the US can't claim any sort of ownership: it's 'owned' just as much by Europeans just as much as by Americans. The U.S. government may disagree, but I think a distribution made in Germany like SuSE is ultimately outside of their jurisdiction.
    The problem, however, is that US (and other countries) have laws that treat software like physical property. It isn't, and eventually law will have to deal with this. Obviously, there isn't a clear precedent for this. The US and Iran may have different opinions on what the law should be, based on their concerns as nation-states, but linux itself is not national. It crosses national boundaries because it is information. Whatever the law may be, an Iranian can download linux distributions without penalty from the internet. The US government is powerless to stop this, whatever its laws may say.
    Ultimately, there will be some sort of conflict, a legal battle or something more, between the interests of capitalistic nation-states and the non-national, non-money based systems of information contained in phenomena like linux. The western world cannot, at present, deal with free software.
    There are a lot of good suggestions for your your problem here. I'm sure that you'll be able to find a solution, although I'm not sure that the US government will like what's going on, whatever you do.
  • > why would you want to do business with people that
    > want to design, make and worse yet, USE chemical weapons and other biological warfare devices?

    Interestingly enough, the Debian Free Software Guidelines (for example) stipulate that you cannot discriminate against fields of endeavour, so in principle these people could use /(GNU\/)?Linux/ when producing chemical weapons (not that I think they'd care much about the license anyway?)
    Some of the CERN libraries have a clause in their license that says that the library in question cannot be used in any kind of military research, and this actually makes the library non-free in the DFSG sense.

    Of course, it doesn't answer your question. Sorry ;)
  • Within American Legal Jurisprudence, a state has general jurisdiction over a corporation, if its incorpororated in the state or maintains substantial contacts with a state. While the latter condition is fuzzy, it ususally is satisfied by it having an office in the state, or targeting a state for a substantial amount of business.
    If its the American govt. your worried about, you can bet they would use any and every mechanism to say its U.S. (i.e. nationality of developers, location of equipment used in production etc.) to get it over the 10% bar.
    Judging from the original post, I am betting its the Austrian govt that would be the major concern. I do not think the Iranian govt. would care about a deal that furthered its citizens interests (unless the citizen was anti-govt.) If I were Austrian, I wouldn't give a rat's a#$% about what the US courts would hold unless it is one of the munitions talked about in the previous posts. Not only would the US courts not have any type or personal or subject matter jurisdiction, I doubt they would flex any muscle in trying to enforce a US statute on a foreign national.

    btw - I do agree with your premise. Its rather infantile to take an international cooperative effort and brand it for your own political agenda.

Slashdot Top Deals

For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

Close