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Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 22:50:04 +0100 From: Alexander Kjeldaas <astor@guardian.no> Subject: Re: German government press release on Wassenaar

I applied for an examination of the Open Source definition to the department for foreign affairs in Norway. The response (no surprise) was that Open Source is compliant with what the Wassenaar-agreement calls "public domain" software.

Actualy that is surprising since Open Sourse does not imply the loss of rights by the author as public domain does. If this is so and Germany interprets Open Source in this way then the OS movement will fail in Germany (at least). There will be no motive for authors to release their work since they will be in effect releasing all rights to it, not the goal of OS at all. The impact on this for closed source derivitive products is also of some interest. I wonder what RMS will have to say on that one... ____________________________________________________________________ What raises the standard of living may well diminish the quality of life. The Club of Rome The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------