FYI: Plan9 open sourced

[Narvi]

On Sat, 21 Jun 2003, Bakul Shah wrote:

> > > >I don't think section seven (export control) should appear in a truly free
> > > >licence.
> > >
> > > Why not? It's just a specific instance of the general disclaimer of
> > > liability found in many licenses, including the BSD and MIT licenses.
> >
> > Because without it, a random person outside the US receiving it would
> > technicaly (ignoring cruise missle diplomacy) not be bound by US export
> > regulations. By using code under this licence, it is no longer (as far as
> > that and derived code is concerned) no longer the case.
>
> With or without clause 7, if you are in the US, you _are_
> bound by its laws including export control regulations.  If
> you are living outside the US, you are _NOT_ bound by US
> laws.  The plan 9 lawyers are simply making this explicit.
>

You need to re-read the licence. A licence can (and the plan 9 one does)
explicitly require you to comply with the US export regulations. This may
not be a valid clause in some jurisdictions, but the fact remains that
that is what

> If from US you shipped a FreeBSD CD with some prohibited bits
> to North Korea you are in the same trouble regradless of what
> the FreeBSD license says.  Basically all free software (or
> may be all software) originating in the US is in the same
> boat.  The way I heard it, shipping bits without any crypto
> (so that cryto bits can be added later) can also run afoul of
> the law.  If true that is truly frightening:-(  The irony is
> that these laws hurt people in the US more than anyone else.
>

Thats largely the problem of the people inside the US - vote for people
who can clean up the shop.

> Nevertheless, if the license is the *only* reason you are not
> using plan 9 and you want to influence the license it makes a
> lot more sense to discuss it with the plan 9 people rather
> than here.  I do think plan 9 has a lot of very useful things
> that can benefit *BSDs and think that the license is open
> enough to start using them -- the only reason I brought this
> up in the first place.
>