Date:	Wed, 2 Aug 2000 19:18:42 -0400 (EDT)
From:	Henry Spencer <henry@spsystems.net>
To:	linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu
Subject: Re: FW: Crypto

>> FreeSWAN is complicated by the fact they want no US resident contributing.
>> That makes life kind of tricky
>Yes.  I'm not sure if this is a healthy idea anymore, at least not with 
>the last BXA concessions...

Trouble is, those concessions are not Supreme Court decisions.  They could
be reversed with one stroke of a bureaucrat's pen.  (Remember that it's an
election year in the US.)  It has happened -- four years ago, US rules on
exporting satellite technology were reasonable, but not any more, not since
Congress decided they could embarrass the President over it.

If FreeS/WAN were to once start accepting US contributions, then making
its code base *verifiably*, *unquestionably* free of them again -- should
that become necessary -- would be extremely difficult.  It's an all but
irrevocable step, requiring considerable trust in a government that has
historically been openly hostile to free crypto.

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry@spsystems.net

(I don't normally have time to follow this list much, but a friend
pointed me to this discussion...)

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