Re: The APSL and Export Controls
> Also, the trailer:
>
> In any event, you must be of majority age and otherwise competent to enter
> into contracts to accept this license.
>
> fails DFSG point (5). There's no point telling me why apple added this
> clause - I do understand why. Nonetheless, IMO, it fails point (5).
ditto for the 'you may not distribute copies to places where it would be
illegal under us law' (aside: this does *not* say just embargoed countries;
this is just cited as a specific example. if apple released cryptographic
code under apsl, it would be violation of licence to export anywhere but
canada, or even to distribute it -within- the us to foreign nationals. there
is no real point in any of these, since they're restricted by law anyways;
furthermore the export ones are restrictions that would *not* otherwise be
in effect (because there could be some route to an export-restricted country
that is strictly legal, that is, us->x->y, where it's legal to export the
code from the us to country x, and from country x to country y, but not from
the us straight to country y. i'm sure there are many such routes), and they
don't give apple any apparent benefit either. generally, adding a limitation
merely because it mirrors a law in the author's country is pointless.
and the revocation clause *really* should be outlawed in the dfsg; i think
an emergency update, before the drafted dfsg 2.0 is finished and published,
to add a clause 11 which disallows revocation is in order. but then again,
maybe not.
--phouchg
"Reasoning is partly insane" --Rush, "Anagram (for Mongo)"
PGP 5.0 key (0xE024447449) at http://cif.rochester.edu/~phouchg/pgpkey.txt
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