IP: Easing on Software Exports Has Limits

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/articles/11code.html

October 11, 1999


           Easing on Software Exports Has Limits

           By PETER WAYNER

                  hen the Clinton administration recently announced 
plans to relax
                  restrictions on exports of data-scrambling software, 
a key issue that
                  escaped notice was that the new policies affect only 
shrink-wrapped
           software, not the original source code -- the lines of 
instructions that
           programmers actually write.

           When it comes to source code, the undersecretary of 
commerce for export
           administration, William Reinsch, said last week that 
"nothing has changed."

           The exclusion of source code
           from the relaxed rules threatens
           to constrain software developed
           under the so-called open-source
           model, most notably the Linux
           operating system, an upstart
           competitor to Microsoft's
           Windows.

           Linux and other open-source
           programs are created by
           loose-knit coalitions of
           programmers around the world
           who exchange source codes. Many
           of these teams have developed
           unusually error-free software in part because access to the 
source code
           allows each programmer to find colleagues' mistakes, improve on a
           program's efficiency, offer fixes for bugs and add new features.