Re: Are DFSG free package in non-us part of Debian?
***** MS => Martin Schulze
>> Your admission is a key point.
MS> No, it's not.
Explain to me why, please, possibly by answering this simple question:
is `The GNU Privacy Guard' DFSG free?
MS> Since it cannot redistributed by a US citizen to a non-us citizen
MS> it is not *perfectly* free. I grant that it uses a free license
MS> but still isn't freely redistributable. No, I don't like that.
I disagree most strongly with this interpretation, in fact I think
it's perfectly free.
Don't skip my question, please, what will you do if some exotic
country introduced export restrictions on C compilers, will you kick
gcc out of main? I can't believe you will. Please don't tell me that
this could never happen, as it would be too stupid: without any
offense intended, I think U.S. export regulations are stupid as well,
in this specific case.
MS> Believe me that I don't like it either but I cannot fix broken US
MS> crypto law by programming. Please talk to the american senat or
MS> something, try to get involved with EFF and similar campaigns.
I'm not a US citizen, I just worked there for some time. It's not a
major problem of my life what the US government will decide on this
issue: I support such efforts as I can, but I think this completely
misses my point. The States are not the world, neither are the world
center. You are aware that some packages in main may be illegal in
some country because of their contents? (Think of the Bible, I'm not
sure, but I won't be surprised to discover that there exist counties
were people aren't permitted to read it.)
MS> However by letting packages in main depend on packages outside of
MS> main we would result in a showstopper release which will result in
MS> people preferring something else over Debian because Debian cannot
MS> be installed. Please always keep in mind that the official CD
MS> doesn't contain non-US.
So, let's work to make it possible that packages in main could, one
day, depend on non-US DFSG free packages, but, please, don't accept
the current situation just for this reason. We should look ahead.
MS> We also cannot include it into main since it is not freely
MS> redistributable.
In the U.S., which, I'll repeat myself, are not the center of the
world.
In Germany you could have it included in main. What if main contained
some package illegal in Germany (a very extreme example would be a
nazi text, not that I think we will ever let such a text in main, I'm
just arguing).
Regards,
--
Davide G. M. Salvetti - IW5DZC [JN53fr] - <http://salve.home.ml.org/>
Have a look at Debian GNU/Linux: <http://www.debian.org/>.
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