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This is not directly on topic but I though it may be intresting to some. It seems that the DTI are doing what ever they can to distroy SME's in the UK, SW Pats are one example but the latest law (and this one IS law now) is just as stupid. It seems with all the paranoia regarding terrorism, UK law has been tightened up greatly and exporting has been targeted. It seems that (to give an example|) if a customer of ours (or potential customer) from outside the E.U. (US, Canada, Australia etc included) then it is illegal for me to *discuss* anything *technical* with them that is not in the public domain. (Theres that *technical* word again :-( ), because i don't have an export licence. Whats worse is the individual is the guilty party not the company with 10 year jail terms being threatened. Ie if its not on our website or literature its off limits, I can no longer discuss the customers application or suggest what products would forfil there requirement and why, It went on with more and more stupid examples to the extent that if i take a battery out of the EU and give it to some one (it **MAY** be used by a terrorist) and i don't have an export licence so I'm guilty!. The law has been taken to the absoulte extreame and there is NO grey area. I am being deadly serious, these examples came straight from a DTI event last week. In a way that was very familiar to the SW pat workshops the ONLY companies who though this was a good idea were the large ones with departments devoted to export licencing, SME's though this was outrageous and another half assed attempt to stop terrorism by hindering legitimate businesses and doing absolutely nothing about the real problem at hand. It seems this is a EU recommendation but we are the only ones to take it up at the moment from what i can gather, On the plus side, they were quite clear about the "public domain" bit so making software open source (and available publicly etc as normal) avoids all these export problems so maybe a positive spin can be taken from this for free software. If i need to send SW anywhere, I'll just open source it first, that way i am compliant with the law but *everyone* can then see it so how does this stop terrorism? Is it me or is the world going nuts? -- Robin Cornelius --------------------------------------------------- robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.cornelius.demon.co.uk http://sourceforge.net/projects/rt2400 GPG Key ID: 0x729A79A23B7EE764 http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x729A79A23B7EE764
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