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I'm curious: what was the rationale for not talking about this at all until it was ready? It seems like "we're working on a possible solution" would have been a

I'm curious: what was the rationale for not talking about this at all until it was ready? It seems like "we're working on a possible solution" would have been a good response to the many complaints about this. Was there some reason to believe that mentioning you were working towards this license would have a detrimental effect on the review process for that license?

natfriedman 6y ago
I mentioned it many times, actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22630340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22630340 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1250200008621608962?s=20 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1250200008621608962?s...
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  Thanks for clarifying; the mention of "advocating" hadn't seemed connected to the idea of obtaining a "license". Congratulations on prevailing here.
londons_explore 6y ago
Saying "we are applying for an OFAC license" will lead to a deluge of other tech companies applying for the same license, and the likely outcome is the OFAC says "we don't have the manpower to review all these, reject them all".
dijit 6y ago
If they had been denied the licence then it’s potentially misleading. Generally you don’t comment on things if there is a very realistic chance they’re unachievable.
- aflag 6y ago
  Why would it be misleading to say they are applying for a license?
  - sbarre 6y ago
    Because this is the Internet and the angry mob often doesn't understand how the real world works, and the cognitive load of dealing with that angry mob when said things don't go the way they've naively imagined it _must_ is exhausting.
    - aflag 6y ago
      I'd imagine that later saying your license was denied would direct the internet mob in your favour, not against you.
      - sbarre 6y ago
        We can certainly agree to disagree! ;-)
      - crististm 6y ago
        That would work on the hypothesis that the internet mob is a rationale agent. That may not be so.
ncallaway 6y ago
My guess is two reasons: - Expectations settings. If they say they're working on a possible solution, people will expect the solution to materialize and get upset when it doesn't. Since this seems like it was a lobbying effort with OFAC, there was probably a large degree of uncertainty on whether this would happen at all. - Like you suggested, maybe they thought any public comment about this might put at risk the conversations they were having with OFAC?
aaomidi 6y ago
I'm going to guess that the US government wouldn't have appreciated the external pressure going public about it would've added onto their review process.
dbt00 6y ago
as a software engineer, you have some* control over the scheduling and cadence of your features you develop. You have no control over when you get a permit from the government like this. It's nuts. Even when the open source exception to ITAR was passed in the late 90s MIT was very careful not to release kerberos V outside the USA until they had very clear guarantees that it was approved.

natfriedman 6y ago

I mentioned it many times, actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22630340 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22630340 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1250200008621608962?s=20 https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1250200008621608962?s...

JoshTriplett 6y ago
Thanks for clarifying; the mention of "advocating" hadn't seemed connected to the idea of obtaining a "license". Congratulations on prevailing here.

londons_explore 6y ago

Saying "we are applying for an OFAC license" will lead to a deluge of other tech companies applying for the same license, and the likely outcome is the OFAC says "we don't have the manpower to review all these, reject them all".

dijit 6y ago

If they had been denied the licence then it’s potentially misleading. Generally you don’t comment on things if there is a very realistic chance they’re unachievable.

aflag 6y ago
Why would it be misleading to say they are applying for a license?
- sbarre 6y ago
  Because this is the Internet and the angry mob often doesn't understand how the real world works, and the cognitive load of dealing with that angry mob when said things don't go the way they've naively imagined it _must_ is exhausting.
  - aflag 6y ago
    I'd imagine that later saying your license was denied would direct the internet mob in your favour, not against you.
    - sbarre 6y ago
      We can certainly agree to disagree! ;-)
    - crististm 6y ago
      That would work on the hypothesis that the internet mob is a rationale agent. That may not be so.

ncallaway 6y ago

My guess is two reasons: - Expectations settings. If they say they're working on a possible solution, people will expect the solution to materialize and get upset when it doesn't. Since this seems like it was a lobbying effort with OFAC, there was probably a large degree of uncertainty on whether this would happen at all. - Like you suggested, maybe they thought any public comment about this might put at risk the conversations they were having with OFAC?

aaomidi 6y ago

I'm going to guess that the US government wouldn't have appreciated the external pressure going public about it would've added onto their review process.

dbt00 6y ago

as a software engineer, you have some* control over the scheduling and cadence of your features you develop. You have no control over when you get a permit from the government like this. It's nuts. Even when the open source exception to ITAR was passed in the late 90s MIT was very careful not to release kerberos V outside the USA until they had very clear guarantees that it was approved.