<div class="gmail_quote">On 3 July 2013 22:55, Andrés Muñiz Piniella <<a href="mailto:andresmp@gmail.com" target="_blank">andresmp@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> Hi a policy question, I just read this (1). It seems that some countries can not use the code from google code if it is encrypted software? If someone puts some GPL code, will this not be against it? Do others like launchpad, github have similar restrictions? This prism business is really getting to me. (1)<a href="https://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html" target="_blank">https://code.google.com/projecthosting/terms.html</a> -- </blockquote></div> I think you are misunderstanding what it says. It talks about encryption software, that is software that encrypts data, and an obligation to tell the US government about it. I suppose that is because such software can be used for all sorts of illegal purposes, for instance drug dealers can encrypt messages sent between themselves for criminal purposes that the US government may want to intercept. Of course, it may also want to intercept messages for other purposes, such as intelligence gathering, hence your reference to prism. This condition is imposed because the code is hosted in the USA. Code hosted elsewhere would, I suppose, not come under these rules. The other part refers to those countries subject to US export regulations, such as Cuba has been for many years and Syria has been since the troubles started there more recently. Export of computer code is subject to the same regulations as the export of other goods to these countries. Hope that explains things a bit for you. Tony