jonathan@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Jonathan) (11/14/89)
Last I heard, Mach was not (yet) avaiable outside the US. I am told this has changed. Is Mach source really available to academic institutions outside the US without excessive export compliance rigmarole? If so, what is the best way to obtain Mach ? -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- sane mailers: jonathan@comp.vuw.ac.nz | `What?' UUCP path: ...!uunet!vuwcomp!jonathan | - Richard M Nixon
Rick.Rashid@CS.CMU.EDU (11/17/89)
Mach source has always been available outside the US to anyone who wanted to obtain for themselves the appropriate export license. A number of companies have, in fact, done so. Originally we at CMU did not want to incur the expense and hassle of obtaining an export license for ourselves, but we have recently been encouraged by funding sources to do so. We are now in the process of obtaining an export license and as soon as that process is complete we will begin to process directly requests for export of Mach. -Rick
haertig@gmdzi.UUCP (Hermann Haertig) (11/20/89)
From article <1989Nov14.040632.19957@comp.vuw.ac.nz>, by jonathan@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Jonathan): > Last I heard, Mach was not (yet) avaiable outside the US. I am told > this has changed. Is Mach source really available to academic > institutions outside the US without excessive export compliance > rigmarole? > > If so, what is the best way to obtain Mach ? When I visited various US-universities in May/June this year, I tried to find out about availability of MACH - sources for Europeans. I got two types of aswers: 1) such as: |From: Rick.Rashid@CS.CMU.EDU |Newsgroups: comp.os.mach |Subject: Re: Mach available outside US? How to order? |Message-ID: <MZMmo2200jdX4Bk2k2@cs.cmu.edu> |Date: 16 Nov 89 21:56:18 GMT |Sender: rfr@RFR.MACH.CS.CMU.EDU |Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA |Lines: 10 |Posted: Thu Nov 16 22:56:18 1989 | |Mach source has always been available outside the US to anyone |who wanted to obtain for themselves the appropriate export license. |A number of companies have, in fact, done so. Originally we at CMU |did not want to incur the expense and hassle of obtaining an export |license for ourselves, New is: | but we have recently been encouraged by funding |sources to do so. We are now in the process of obtaining an export |license and as soon as that process is complete we will begin to |process directly requests for export of Mach. | |-Rick 2) MACH source is on Munitions Control Act (whatever that is) together with such things as missile technology, nuclear energy etc. This implies it cannot be exported outside US without violating US law. Even foreign nationals staying in US msut not have access to it. (I have no written statement, but only telefone and personal conversations.) Can anybody clear that up? - Was/is MACH source on Munitions Control Act? - If so, which consequences does that have on availability of MACH source to Japanese and Europeans? - Does the following apply for sources? |From: alan@mtxinu.COM (Alan Tobey) |Newsgroups: comp.os.mach |Subject: Re: Mach Sources |Keywords: Supported Distribution |Message-ID: <1055@mtxinu.UUCP> |Date: 18 Nov 89 18:19:06 GMT |Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley |Lines: 37 |Posted: Sat Nov 18 19:19:06 1989 | |===== | |We expect the distribution will be exportable anywhere UNIX is, though |perhaps with a short delay if our pending applications don't complete |in time for the January release. | |=== hermann haertig German National Research Center for Computer Science (GMD)
ken@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman) (11/21/89)
Without commenting on the specifics of MACH, I ran into this export rule when looking at restrictions on exporting ISIS. There is a US Department of Commerce (USDC) group in charge of export licensing and policies, and systems like ISIS (mine) or CAMELOT (CMU's) fall under a "restricted export" policy. I believe this is the case for MACH too; presumably Rick will fill us in soon. ISIS is in a category for networking and fault-tolerant software. In the case of ISIS, the deal is that export licenses are required for export to countries on a USDC maintained list of "non-free world" countries. This list is updated constantly; all of Western Europe is ok and all of Eastern Europe is on it, China is on it, Afghanistan, etc. We were told that ISIS could be exported to free-world countries provided that we take reasonable steps to prevent re-export of the system to restricted countries. Our group does this by asking foreign users to sign a statement agreeing not to re-export the code in ways that violate this rule. Although the legal status of such an agreement is murkey, USDC gave me the wording and told me it would satisfy them if I secured it. I have about 300 such forms on file by now. I was also told by DARPA that if export licenses for ISIS were ever requested they would help us obtain them. So far, I have received no such request. My guess is that MACH is in a similar situation -- I'm looking forward to hearing about Rick's experiences on this! If MACH really falls into a different category of software, it would be very interesting to know how they decide which category to apply... Ken
rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (11/21/89)
Mach HAD been on the controlled export list, it is being taken off, and may already be off. This means that you can give it away to anyone in the so-called "free world" provided you do something like get a form from them saying that they won't export it where they shouldn't. The Athena people have even less paperwork: if you want to FTP Kerberos you get pointed to a full that says "if you promise not to break US Export regulations, you can pick up the distribution from ...full pathname..." The multi-level secure version of MACH being done by TIS (?) will be on the controlled list. It is all stupid short-side US Politics; anyone technical involved with this will quickly tell you that. /r$ -- Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net. Use a domain-based address or give alternate paths, or you may lose out.
Rick.Rashid@CS.CMU.EDU (11/21/89)
For the 1,000,000th time: 1) To the best of my knowledge and CMU's knowledge there is not and has never been any formal restriction on the export of Mach. A number of companies have exported Mach for the last 3 years and there are a number of sites outside the US which are active Mach development sites. This point was driven home at the October Mach Workshop in Boston which was sponsored by the Open Software Foundation which had a number of foreign participants and presenters. 2) CMU and Mt Xinu will indeed be distributing Mach outside the US. Originally it was my policy to avoid dealing with the Dept. of Commerce and State and paying lawyers. This made a great deal of sense in 1987 when we started distribution since we were (and are) distributing the software free of any charge including a distribution fee. With the announcement by the OSF that they will be basing OSF/1 on Mach 2.5 we and our funding sources felt that it would be appropriate to begin direct (as opposed to indirect through companies) distribution outside the US. 3) Distributions of Mach release 2.5 are currently available from CMU and CMU will always be a source of research versions of Mach for interested systems groups in Academia and Industry. We expect, however, that sites both inside and outside the US that want "real" distributions of Mach will get those distributions from Mt Xinu. CMU does not have the staff to do professional releases or to provide support or other services. Mt Xinu should begin their releases in January (they have posted several messages to this group about their releases). Mt Xinu works very closely with us (and in fact is doing this release under contract to CMU) and has access to the most up-to-date kernels, servers and libraries. Initially their release will handle the same VAX, RT and SUN 3 platforms that we have handled in our releases. Both they and we expect, however, that a number of other machine types will be added to that distribution over time. -Rick