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Simon Lascelles [simon.lascelles at rems.com]
I would like to thank everyone for their comments. I do hope the topic has not made too many peoples blood pressure to rise to "dangerous levels", although it is clear a topic several people are passionate about. In summary it looks to me that Linux could be used on one of two basis's;
1. If we were not a UK company (or any company citied in the restrictions). To resolve this we could establish an off shore company to provide the distribution to circumvent this restriction.
2. Encryption was removed from the package. A task I believe is relatively simple to achieve.
Two points I would like to make for your information and further comment is that I believe the restriction on US content is 10% not 1% as one person commented. Secondly I will of course seek legal advice before proceeding but wanted to see if this issue had been seen before, by the experts (the legal guys don't tend to know what they are talking about anyway). Thank you once again and if you have further advice on the issue it would be gratefully appreciated.
-- Simon Lascelles Managing Director REMS International Email: simon.lascelles@rems.com <blocked::mailto:simon.lascelles@rems.com> Web Site: http://www.rems.com/ <http://www.rems.com/> Mobile: 07956 676112 Telephone: 01727 848800;Yahoo: rems25x8@yahoo.com
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Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Thu, Jul 03, 2008 at 11:17:08AM +0100, Simon Lascelles wrote:
> > I would like to thank everyone for their comments. I do hope the topic has > not made too many peoples blood pressure to rise to "dangerous levels", > although it is clear a topic several people are passionate about.
[grin] Everyone is just fine, I'm sure; many of us were weaned on the 'vi vs. emacs' and 'KDE vs. Gnome' religious wars, so this wouldn't even ruffle the surface. I do thank you for starting an interesting discussion, though.
> In summary it looks to me that Linux could be used on one of two basis's; > > 1. If we were not a UK company (or any company citied in the > restrictions). To resolve this we could establish an off shore company to > provide the distribution to circumvent this restriction.
...and possibly get whacked for trying to circumvent the law in that way, unless you were very, very clever about it.
> 2. Encryption was removed from the package. A task I believe is > relatively simple to achieve.
Again, please don't take my opinion as any guarantee, but this approach sounds to me like the right one - assuming it satisfies both the legal and the technical requirements.
> Two points I would like to make for your information and further comment is > that I believe the restriction on US content is 10% not 1% as one person > commented.
I think we've got a bit of confusion going on here. The numbers weren't about the allowable export content or whatever - they were estimates of US-based developers' contributions to Linux, which certainly exceeds 10%.
> Secondly I will of course seek legal advice before proceeding > but wanted to see if this issue had been seen before, by the experts (the > legal guys don't tend to know what they are talking about anyway).
Well, they do have their bailiwick - but for commercial law, they need to know a given industry's specific legal needs as well as its challenges, and to have some experience in dealing with threading that needle. Otherwise, you're right; since a lawyer's training is about preserving the status quo and fitting everything within that box, they're not worth much for dealing with new problems.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *