Re: Netscape

[Ted Anderson <ota+@transarc.com>]

shamrock@netcom.com (Lucky Green) writes:
> At 15:27 7/20/96, Tom Weinstein wrote:
> >Why not consider what the consequences will be?  Do you seriously
> >believe that this will make the government stop enforcing ITAR?  Do you
> >believe it will make them change the law?  No.  What it will do is make
> >them remove our permission to distribute this stuff.
> 
> I doubt that. PGP has been distributed for years with less safeguards
> than Netscape. It is available on more free-world sites than Netscape
> US. This did not prompt the powers that be to force MIT to take down
> their site.
> ...

I must agree with Lucky.  I am quite sure that even if Netscape was not
begin distributed over the net, copies would still be uploaded to
international sites by folks practicing Civil disobedience.  Only they'd
have to wait to get the release from a store or some other source.

If you think the net distribution channel is in danger, consider these
suggestions.  The basic idea is to provide plausible denyability that
the net site was the source of the "leak".

Offer to send the latest version on floppy to US addresses of
the first 100 people who request them.  I only suggest 100 to keep your
costs down.  But any decent sized number would do.

I got my copy bundled with my ISP software.  So make sure your ISP and
other redistributers have their copies a few days before you make it
available on the net.  Then new ISP accounts will start getting copies
before the net copies become available.

This may not work as well for beta's, but I'm sure other approaches
along these lines would work too.  Of course, it make sense to make sure
the binaries used in each of these channels are indistinguishable.

Ted Anderson