“A U.S. Department of Commerce official last week said the
Clinton administration may reconsider its restriction on exporting
source code for programs using strong encryption.”
“Many commercial software companies don’t publish the underlying
source code for their programs because they consider it proprietary
information. But an increasing number of businesses are using
open-source software, such as the Linux operating system, which
makes their source code freely available to anyone.”
“William Reinsch, an undersecretary of Commerce, said
vendors and users of open-source programs such as Linux complained
about restrictions on source code after the administration
announced last month that it would allow the export of compiled
programs using strong encryption…“