Pupeno <pupeno at pupeno.com> wrote:
> I see, I didn't know about it, but even then, the fact that USA prohibits 
> exporting Squeak from USA to Cuba, it doesn't mean that the license must 
> aprove it (that is, if I make some software under the same license as 
> Squeak's, here in Argentina,I still wouldn't be able to send it to Cuba, even 
> when those USA laws doesn't apply to me).
> Here RMS explains it: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
> "Sometimes government export control regulations and trade sanctions can 
> constrain your freedom to distribute copies of programs internationally. 
> Software developers do not have the power to eliminate or override these 
> restrictions, but what they can and must do is refuse to impose them as 
> conditions of use of the program. In this way, the restrictions will not 
> affect activities and people outside the jurisdictions of these governments."

This analysis overlooks that indirect exports might also be disallowed.
That is, if Apple gives software to someone in Argentina, and that person
exports it to Cuba, then Apple may well be breaking the law.  It seems
rather daring for a US entity *not* to insist that recipients conform to
US embargos.

Incidentally, the USA is not unusual in this area.  Here is an overview
of the EU's trade sanctions:

	http://www.eurunion.org/legislat/Sanctions.htm

Substitute any EU country for "USA" in these discussions and you run
into the same issues with approximately the same list of embargoed
countries.

One rarely mentioned argument for removing the embargo clause from
Squeak-L is that, possibly, the software is not subject to embargo anyway.
I did a quick reading of some of the relevant law, and it appeared that
completely free and widely-available stuff is not subject to embargo.

I don't know whether that applies to Squeak or not, though.  I certainly
am not a lawyer!  About the only lawyers involved in these
debates are the guys who wrote Squeak-L, and since they are on our
side, I am inclined to presume they did a decent job.


Lex