From: Ken Bantoft (ken_at_freeswan.ca)
Date: Thu Oct 31 2002 - 05:32:31 CET
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On Wed, 30 Oct 2002 seberino_at_spawar.navy.mil wrote:
> I heard somewhere that FreeSwan is going into
> 2.5.x kernel because of new US laws that allow
> this? Is this true?
>
> Can someone please elaborate on current
> US export laws regarding crypto and freeswan?
FreeS/WAN is not, and probably will never go into the mainstream kernel.
The project sponsor (John Gilmour) has mandated from day one that 0 lines
of code from US citizens/residents be allowed into the project. Linus is
a US citizen and/or resident. David Miller (kernel developer, RedHat) has
said he'd never put something into the kernel that he couldn't touch.
Both sides have very valid points, and thus are in a permadent state of
dead-lock.
Linus merged a variant of an earlier fork of FreeS/WAN, mixed in with some
code from the USAGI project (IPv6 for linux, which includes ipsec), and
some new code to glue it all together. So there is ipsec support in the
kernel. But no userland tools, config files, etc. That's all extra, and
not part of the kernel.
Now, for the 2nd part of your question.
IANAL, however this is my understanding of the current situation.
The US "relaxed" regulations by a government declaration. This is *not* a
law, and thus can be revoked at any time by either the house, the senate
or the President. As such, you can export products with crypto outside of
the US freely, until the government changes it's mind (which will probably
happen shortly after the US goes into it's next war. I mean hey, we don't
want to give <insert country here> access to encryption while we're at war
with them, right? <insert Homeland Security and War on Terrorist stuff
here>)
Therefore, if/when the government revokes the declaration, Linus would
have to pull out all of the crypto code, or cease to distribute the Linux
kernel.
This isn't exactly ideal for anyone at the moment, but it's 2.5 stuff, so
won't be considered mainstream for another 6 months at the earliest.
Hopefully some of the stuff will be sorted out by then, but I won't be
holding my breath.
- --
Ken Bantoft The Unoffical FreeS/WAN Site:
ken_at_freeswan.ca http://www.freeswan.ca
PGP Key: finger ken_at_bantoft.org
"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."
-- Voltaire
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