Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!ken
From: ken@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman)
Newsgroups: comp.os.mach
Subject: Re: Mach available outside US?  How to order?
Message-ID: <34470@cornell.UUCP>
Date: 20 Nov 89 18:52:32 GMT
References: <1989Nov14.040632.19957@comp.vuw.ac.nz> <1704@gmdzi.UUCP>
Sender: nobody@cornell.UUCP
Reply-To: ken@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman)
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY
Lines: 31

Without commenting on the specifics of MACH, I ran into this export
rule when looking at restrictions on exporting ISIS.

There is a US Department of Commerce (USDC) group in charge of export
licensing and policies, and systems like ISIS (mine) or CAMELOT (CMU's)
fall under a "restricted export" policy.   I believe this is the case for
MACH too; presumably Rick will fill us in soon.  ISIS is in a category for
networking and fault-tolerant software.

In the case of ISIS, the deal is that export licenses are required for
export to countries on a USDC maintained list of "non-free world"
countries.  This list is updated constantly; all of Western Europe is
ok and all of Eastern Europe is on it, China is on it, Afghanistan, etc.

We were told that ISIS could be exported to free-world countries provided
that we take reasonable steps to prevent re-export of the system to 
restricted countries.  Our group does this by asking foreign users
to sign a statement agreeing not to re-export the code in ways
that violate this rule.  Although the legal status of such an agreement is
murkey, USDC gave me the wording and told me it would satisfy them if I
secured it.  I have about 300 such forms on file by now.

I was also told by DARPA that if export licenses for ISIS were ever requested
they would help us obtain them.  So far, I have received no such request.

My guess is that MACH is in a similar situation -- I'm looking forward
to hearing about Rick's experiences on this!  If MACH really falls into
a different category of software, it would be very interesting to know
how they decide which category to apply...

Ken