Re: CDDL, OpenSolaris, Choice-of-venue and the star package ...

[David Nusinow <david_nusinow@verizon.net>]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 01:30:47PM -0700, Adam McKenna wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 16, 2005 at 04:22:21PM -0400, David Nusinow wrote:
> > Basically, the clincher for me is that our mirrors can't simply carry the
> > software we distribute without coming under some fair degree of risk due to
> > this issue. 
> 
> What if the People's Republic of Kraplakistan made a law that all of its 
> citizens were due royalties whenever someone distributed a work for which
> they held copyright, regardless of the license under which the works were 
> released?  What if the law went on to declare that Kraplakistan courts
> were granted jurisdiction over all distribution of such works?
> 
> Would you advocate making all copyrighted work non-free, or would you advocate
> that we simply stop distributing material copyrighted by citizens of
> Kraplakistan?

I'd simply advocate that we stop distributing material copyrighted by
citizens of Kraplakistan[1]. I don't think we should use the DFSG to try
and change legal systems. As many others on this list have said in the past
as well, we can't deal with countries with overly restrictive laws.

Let's liken individual licenses to countries. We can refuse to distribute
software bearing an individual license the same way we can refuse to
distribute software from Kraplakistan. If both restrict the guaranteed
freedoms, this is what we should do.

 - David Nusinow

[1] Great name by the way :-)