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Comment by spacebanana7 | Hacker News Reader

It seems Kaspersky can’t write a book or newspaper column with the contents of its source code and sell it in the US.

Without press freedom you don’t have free speech.

Is that a method anyone has ever used to distribute paid, multi-GB software (or ever will for that matter)? I’m pretty sure Kaspersky is fully closed source anyways. This argument seems really roundabout and ineffective.

The original code for PGP was distributed that way. Which was also banned in the US.

But yeah, it is a pretty bad comparison.

When was PGP banned in the US?

My bad. It was export restricted and they were prosecuted for it. That’s the reason they had to publish it by book.

It wasn't, its export was controlled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy

Most commercial books and newspapers are effectively 'source available', which is closer to closed source than open source.

Just print the hex dump, would probably be quite large unless you used microfiche.

You believe a tech company can actually act freely under the Russian government? With thr FSB…

The problem is that the company in question can act freely from the US government. Should I remind you what triggered this animosity toward Kaspersky in the first place? https://www.wired.com/story/nsa-leak-kaspersky-labs/

The US is currently indirectly at war with Russia... I don't understand why you think it makes sense to let someone you are basically at war with operate on your computers

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