Introduction

Moore's Law, Disk Law, and Fiber Law have created an economic engine for growth, promising exponentially improving computing, storage, and networking performance for the foreseeable future. And yet according to a 2003 UNCTAD report, "there has been no Moore's Law for software," and indeed it is because of software that computer systems have become more expensive, more complex, and less reliable.

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A recent blog posting at The Guardian about the US "Special 301" rules has generated deep concern around the global open source community.

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You can read about it here and then decide for yourself whether to sign it as well.

If you distribute Open Source software containing encryption from the United States, you are subject to US export controls, yes. But are there any real restrictions? The only thing that the law requires you to do (for Open Source) is send an email to crypt@bxa.doc.gov with the URL. So why do SourceForge and Google impose greater restrictions than the law requires? Anybody know?

UPDATE 8-Feb-2010: Good news! SourceForge has turned off blanket restrictions, and made it a per-project choice. Unfortunately, they default to blocking, so everyone login to SF and declare your project to be freely redistributable to all! If you think your software might be subject to export control, then send your SF.net URL to the email address listed above. CC a copy to export@ our domain name and I'll keep a copy forever, as evidence that you complied with the law.

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Yesterday Matt Mullenweg announced the establishment of the WordPress Foundation. It's goals, among others, are "to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software".

He further elaborates:

The point of the foundation is to ensure free access, in perpetuity, to the projects we support. People and businesses may come and go, so it is important to ensure that the source code for these projects will survive beyond the current contributor base, that we may create a stable platform for web publishing for generations to come. As part of this mission, the Foundation will be responsible for protecting the WordPress, WordCamp, and related trademarks. A 501(c)3 non-profit organization, the WordPress Foundation will also pursue a charter to educate the public about WordPress and related open source software.

We hope to gather broad community support to make sure we can continue to serve the public good through freely accessible software.

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