Jeffrey Altman wrote:
>
>
> Let me ask a slightly different question:
>
> if the U.S. were to change the export laws to state that starting
> today that software may no longer be exported from the U.S.; and
> that all software currently exported from the U.S. that would no
> longer be legal to export could not be used. And assume that
> OpenSSL did contain significant amounts of U.S. source code, what
> do you really believe the legal affect would be?
>
> The U.S. can't enforce its laws against non-U.S. citizens or companies
> in countries outside the U.S. And even if the OpenSSL developers were
> to come to the U.S., what would they be charged with? Violation of an
> export law that doesn't apply to them because they are not citizens of
> the U.S.?
>
Well if the situation was that clear cut then there should be no problem
getting a statement from the BXA of a lawyer to that effect.
Unfortunately so far we haven't been able to obtain either only some
legal opinions suggesting that using US code may make OpenSSL subject to
US export law. One thing is apparent from the discussions, logic and
common sense have little to do with the laws involved :-(
Perhaps some other member of the team can give more precise details, I
haven't been too involved with that side.
Steve.
--
Dr Stephen N. Henson. http://www.drh-consultancy.demon.co.uk/
Personal Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Senior crypto engineer, Celo Communications: http://www.celocom.com/
Core developer of the OpenSSL project: http://www.openssl.org/
Business Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PGP key: via homepage.
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