[320] in Kerberos
Legal hassles.
daemon@TELECOM.MIT.EDU (Bill Sommerfeld)
Fri Feb 19 17:07:46 1988
From: Bill Sommerfeld <wesommer@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
To: kerberos@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
The only flaw that I can see is their comments about whether or not
publication on Usenet counts as being put in the public domain.
I would argue that it is; I don't think that this impacts the overall
decision though.
>Section 120.18 defines "public domain" as follows:
>
> "Public domain" means information which is published AND WHICH
> IS GENERALLY ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC:
> (a) Through sales at newstands and bookstores;
> (b) Through subscriptions which are available without restriction
> to any individual who desires to obtain or purchase the published
> information;
> (c) Through second class mailing privileges granted by the U.S.
> Government; or,
> (d) At liberaries open to the public.
>
>(Emphasis added.) This definition is a much more restrictive one than
>the analogous Commerce GTDA regulation analyzed by Gilmore: a bulletin
>board posting of information would not fall within ITAR's public domain
>unless that posting qualified under paragraphs (a)-(d) of section
>120.18. A posting would not appear to so qualify. (This memo does not
>take any position on whether bulletin board posting would place
>Commerce-controlled technical data into Commerce's public domain;
>specific information about the technical data and the bulletin board
>would be necessary.)
I think that category (b) holds here (note there is no limit to
subscription costs here).
There are several public-access timesharing systems which provide
USENET access; anyone who can afford a terminal and modem can
presumably subscribe to one of these for a fee.
Also, the USENIX association sells newsfeed access to the USENET
(through uunet.uu.net); anyone who wants to buy into this (and can
afford the phone bill.) presumably can. Uunet also has a stash of
software which has been anonymously FTP'ed from various sites on the
arpanet, so that non-arpa sites can pick up a lot of public domain
stuff as well.
- Bill
