On Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 10:33:45PM -0800, Walter Landry wrote:
> Sam Hartman <hartmans@debian.org> wrote:
> So we're going to put a notice on the US websites telling people that,
> if they want to use the software for nukes, they can't get it here but
> have to go to a non-us mirror? Isn't this basically what the lawyer
> suggested? I thought we had all agreed that that was a use
> restriction.
I'm not really sure why you'd think that. I don't think anyone else has
claimed anything similar.
I'm also not really sure why everyone wants to make this into such a big
thing. Seriously: everyone putting their 2c in just isn't useful. It
might be fun for you, but it's a nuisance and a waste of time for the
people who're actually trying to get some work done. If you've got some
$100 comments, then sure, we're all ears, but if you're just looking
for some excuse to "contribute", and if you're not even trained in the
subject, well don't. Write some code instead.
To reiterate: at the moment, Debian is being crippled by the lack of
integrated cryptography. A number of years ago, the regulations that
forced this lack of integration were relaxed. A number of months ago,
Debian obtained advice from a trained legal expert as to what is necessary
to integrate cryptography without seriously impacting the other things
we do. That advice was to send the appropriate notifications before
distributing packages and to not have official mirrors in T7 countries.
Sending in notifications is not very arduous, and we don't even have any
unofficial mirrors in T7 countries. We further obtained advice to pass on
to US mirror operators on what liability that could incur for mirroring
cryptography, and were advised that while there was basically none,
they could further protect themselves by displaying the aforementioned
disclaimer and/or implementing reverse lookup blocking of T7 countries.
Since the entire point of US mirrors is to make Debian available to
US citizens, and that this doesn't interfere at all with what non-US
mirrors do, this isn't considered a problem.
If you have anything worthwhile to add to this, then please, add it. If
you're just personally offended by the prospect of obeying US law,
well, that's fine, whatever. You're not a developer, and you're welcome
to think whatever you want. Please don't waste everyone's time by trying
to twist the social contract into an excuse to make Debian adopt your
personal prejudices though.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
We came. We Saw. We Conferenced. http://linux.conf.au/
``Debian: giving you the power to shoot yourself in each
toe individually.'' -- with kudos to Greg Lehey
Attachment:
pgpzNwcMOrh8Z.pgp
Description: PGP signature