Re: export policy, was Re: Package Maintainers Flags policy
On Tue, 26 May 2009, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
| On 05/26/2009 10:09 AM, Paul Wouters wrote:
| > See above. Note that the Wassenaar Agreement excludes software that is
| > in the "public domain", eg free/open source software.
|
| This is not correct. "Public Domain" has a very specific legal meaning,
| and 99% of FOSS does _not_ meet it. Public Domain is when the copyright
| holder has explicitly abandoned his/her/its copyright on the work and
| placed it into the Public Domain. (Note: In some countries, such as
| Germany, this is impossible)
Tom is right about the meaning of "public domain" in US law. This is
not the meaning in the Wassenaar Agreement.
That's right, in the Wassenaar context it is (http://jya.com/wass-au.htm):
"in the public domain" (GTN NTN GSN), as it applies herein, means
"technology" or "software" which has been made available without
restrictions upon its further dissemination (copyright restrictions do
not remove "technology" or "software" from being "in the public
domain")
Note that the US has various restrictions on top of the Wassenaar
Agreement, but those do not apply to me (as upstream)
Paul