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U.S.: Easing on Software Exports Has Limits

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/articles/11code.html

Easing on Software Exports Has Limits

By PETER WAYNER

hen the Clinton administration recently announced plans to relax restrictions on exports of data-scrambling software, a key issue that escaped notice was that the new policies affect only shrink-wrapped software, not the original source code -- the lines of instructions that programmers actually write.

When it comes to source code, the undersecretary of commerce for export administration, William Reinsch, said last week that "nothing has changed."

The exclusion of source code from the relaxed rules threatens to constrain software developed under the so-called open-source model, most notably the Linux operating system, an upstart competitor to Microsoft's Windows.

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