Duncan Frissell writes:

I noted that Novell was supposed, today, to assign its rights to Unix to the X/Open consortium

based in London.

You don't suppose that X/Open was founded in London so that future Unix

X/Open is based in Reading, Berkshire (a short walk from my office). Urban sprawl hasn't quite connected Reading and London yet.

versions could integrate crypto without bothering with US export laws. <G>

X/Open doesn't integrate UNIX implementations; it publishes specifications for a Common Application Environment and defines branding schemes which permit users to use an independent yardstick to measure the openness of vendors' systems.

Another blow to America's competitiveness.

Apart from hinting that material considered to be munitions by US law may actuallly be available and in use outside the US (through the presence of interfaces such as crypt(), setkey(), and encrypt() in XPG4), I can't think of any relevance of X/Open's work to the burdens which cryptographic export controls may impose on US companies. Note that similar export constraints as are enjoyed in the US are applied by the national authorities of the UK, and other countries .

Duncan Frissell

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