OK IBM,WCG are based in the US and therefore their hands are tied by the law's of that land as they stand today. As such, as a company located in America they are not allowed to export software to countries that there is a American legal embargo on today. That exportation of software includes the deployment of the WCG agent, a piece of software, to those countries.

Hence the following countries are not in the drop down list.

CUBA
IRAN
NORTH KOREA
LIBYA
SUDAN
SYRIA

This is not WCG making these rules, this is not IBM making these rules, this is the law in the USA and as such has to be adhered to otherwise this project could not continue to run.

I too aspire to the idea that this project crosses all country boundaries which is one of the beauties of the Internet. But hopefully you will see that this requirement has to be accommodated in this way.

Regards

Dave

[Sigh . . . . .] David is really best at explaining this because he is so obviously straight-forward and earnest. I, on the other hand, always have to control an urge to shock people with what I really think.

This reminds me of a sad story from Canada a few years ago. A Canadian farmer married the neighboring farmer’s daughter. In time, after her father died, he took over farming her property and ran the two farms as one. The only problem was that his farm was right at the Canadian border with the United States so he was running an international farm. As far as he was concerned, he could run his farm any way he wanted to. He was quite offensively loud about this, irritating many people in his neighborhood. But he was encouraged by “friends” on the Internet, who encouraged him to defy the law. There were not many hotheads locally, but he could find quite a number of supporters on the World Wide Web. After several years of this, the Canadian police caught him transporting a load of cattle feed from his Canadian farm to his United States herd behind his tractor (on his property). Contrary to Canada’s export regulations. So that is how he ended up a convicted felon.

Several lessons can be drawn from this tale. The one that I suppose I should emphasize is that one should not publicly MOCK Canadian law. Or maybe I should generalize and say that it is always a good idea to be publicly seen to be obeying the law of the land, whichever land you are living in.

Jerbenn,
Just to point out MLCBA's first language is French. Personally I think his English is excellent compared with my French. I might just be able to stretch to "Au Revoir" but even that might be spelt incorrectly I wouldn't know.

Just one more reason for us to take the extra time to understand each other.

Dave

OK, I still don't get it.

If the WCG is located in the USA and USA laws prohibit the export of the grid agent as controlled software, then it seems to me that what IBM should be worried about is preventing the download of the agent to the prohibited countries.

Omitting the names of these countries from a list available for users to specify their national allegiance has absolutely nothing to do with preventing the illegal export of controlled software in violation of US law. All it does is make a political statement. I may be a Cuban expatriate, or perhaps my parents are Iranian , and I currently am where it is legal to help, but I still have loyalty or sentiment to the country of my origin, regardless of what political entity is currently in power there.

The WCG policy does nothing to control the dissemination of the software. It only makes a statement that the WCG is USA and USA morality is to be enforced. If the USA doesn't like a country, then people who call that country their homeland, either current or ancestral, are bad guys and are not welcome.

I can't believe that this is what WCG intends. I imagine that IBM is just covering it's ass to keep the USA government from causing trouble by asking a question. However, the WCG is a noble cause, and the people who run it are too busy trying to justify the curernt policy instead of actually thinking about it. Specifying a prohibited country in my profile has nothing to do whatsoever with the distribution of the software.

This is a noble cause. Instead of blindly following an inferred interpretation of USA export policy, obtain a waiver from the government.. Get people from all countries working together. Then turn that into positive PR for the project.

That is certainly a noble thought.......but getting WCG to actually act upon it may be another story. I agree that this is for the global good and everyone should have the opportunity to participate, and represent proudly whatever country they may live in, [even France ] (just kidding guys).

One thing to think about is the fact that IBM is being extremely generous for even taking on the project. Since IBM is an American based company [generally speaking] it must obey American law. If this project was being produced by a company in another country other than the United States we would fully expect that that company would have to follow the laws of its country. Its unfortunate that it has to happen this way, but thats the way the cookie crumbles. Hopefully with all the bickering and knit picking aside, this project can truly help the world. I am confident that the results of this project are going to help the entire world as a whole and I seriously doubt that cuba or any other country would be denied any kind of benefits that we may learn from this research. We need to keep in mind that this research is aimed at helping all of mankind, and a few international laws standing in the way are merely tiny hurdles on the race track to improving life for all of humanity.

I encourage anyone considering dropping out because of this to step back and think about the big picture.

Thanks,

Jeremy

Check out the Team and consider joining. Website coming soon!
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/team/viewTeamInfo.do?teamId=GF5XNJBR9N1